Things Involving Shipgirls That Are No Longer Allowed
by CV12Hornet
Summary: It all started with one stupid decision, and spiraled out...
1. Rule 2

**Rule 2. Stop giving bottle rockets to the younger destroyers, unless you are willing to make repairs on your own.**

"A-Are you sure we should be doing this, nanodesu?"

Inazuma stared in rapt attention at the quartet of bottle rockets sticking out of one of the fields outside of the Yokosuka naval base, specifically outside of one of the cruiser dorms. Or perhaps her attention was on Ikazuchi holding a lit match to one of the fuses. Hard to tell, really.

"Ah, come on, Inazuma. Where's your sense of adventure?!" the other destroyer demanded as she moved on to the next fuse. "Besides, Unryu uses these all the time. They're perfectly safe!"

Privately, Inazuma doubted the rockets were the same ones Unryu and many of the other carriers used to shoot at Abyssal planes, but held her tongue, lest her sister accidentally burn herself on the alarmingly short match.

Soon, the fuses were lit and the match stamped out. The two destroyers quickly retreated behind a large tree, and waited for the fireworks to start, both girls quivering.

Finally, the fuses burnt out. And nothing happened, besides them sagging on their stabilizing sticks.

"Hwa~?" Ikazuchi groaned. "Why aren't they moving?" Stepping out from behind the tree, she made to check on the rockets. "There should be lots more smoke and- WAGH!"

Ikazuchi hastily threw herself back as the rockets ignited, the adjusted position of the stabilizing sticks making them fire every which way except up. One launched to the left and harmlessly plowed into the turf of the field. Another launched backwards, flying not half a foot past a frozen Inazuma's ear before the firework payload detonated.

The last two went for the dorm.

"Uh-oh..."

There was the sound of breaking glass as the rockets impacted a pair of windows - shortly followed by two loud bangs and a lot of screaming.

"Sh-should we run, nanodesu?" Inazuma stammered, still not moving from her position behind the tree.

"I don't think that'll help..." Ikazuchi trailed off as she saw a baker's dozen cruisers swarm out of the building in various states of undress, including a disgruntled Tenryuu missing her blazer. A disgruntled Tenryuu that made an immediate beeline for the two destroyers.

~o~

"Now, what did we learn today?"

Junyo didn't pause as she pounded a nail into the a fresh floorboard. Admiral Goto had been quite clear on the consequences of that. "Don't give bottle rockets to young destroyers."

"And...?"

The light carrier groaned. "And... n-no... d-drinking... before five..." she ground out, each word like pulling a tooth.

"Good," Goto nodded. "Once you finish up with that floorboard, you're free to go."

Junyo's face lit up. Finally, she could go and forget this day!

"Also, I took the liberty of having Hiyo hide your harder liquors. Should only be beer in that fridge you think I don't know about."

Junyo barely managed to repress a sob as she attacked the floorboard with renewed vigor. Damn him! Her one joy, gone!

 **AN: Yes, Junyo is a drunkard. I checked.**


	2. Rule 5

**Rule 5. No one, but no one, touches the admirals blueberry muffin in the mornings. It will result in pain and an inquiry.**

Admiral Goto walked into his office on a bright Tuesday morning, coffee in hand, said hi to Ooyodo, sat down at his desk, and got to work. Taking out a small paper bag from his briefcase, he pulled out a blueberry muffin and placed it on the front of his desk. No need to eat it just yet.

For a while the scritch-scratch of his pen on paper and taka-taka of his fingers on the keys of his computer were the only sounds in the room. Then he heard footsteps, heading towards his office. Heavy ones. Probably a shipgirl wanting to talk to him. He did make it a point to have an open office, after all. The footsteps stopped, close, but he didn't look up. Just needed to finish that one spreadsheet, and then he could-

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slim hand reach for his blueberry muffin. Thinking fast, he grabbed his letter opener - shaped to look like a miniature katana - and swiftly stabbed it into the hand touching _his goddamn blueberry muffin._

Whoever it was shrieked and ran out of the room, taking the letter opener with her. By the time the red haze of red passed, she was gone.

"Admiral?"

Goto took a moment to make sure his muffin was alright - it was, thank God - before looking up at Ooyodo, who seemed to have just gotten back from an errand.

"Gather all the shipgirls," he said. He noted Ooyodo flinch at the tone in his voice, but ignored it. "We need to have a... discussion."

~o~

One of the amenities built into the naval base was a small auditorium. Originally intended to hold classes for junior officers, it had been repurposed as a briefing room for mass shipgirl deployments. It hadn't seen much use; Japan hadn't had the need for such a large deployment yet. But it could hold the base's entire shipgirl population, and today that was enough.

Admiral Goto swept over the crowd as he stood at the podium. Most of the shipgirls seemed bored and confused, speculating with each other on why they had all been called here. A few looked nervous, mostly new destroyers. But none of them were what he was looking for.

Then his eyes swept over the carriers and he saw a bandage on Akagi's hand. Bingo.

"Attention!" he barked into the microphone. The crowd chatter ceased, and all eyes turned to him. "I want to make an announcement today. I have called you all here to impress upon you the importance of this announcement."

The shipgirls looked equal parts nervous and eager. Regardless, all were paying attention to him.

Reaching down, he pulled out the paper bag and pulled his muffin out again. "This... is my muffin. There are many like it, but this is mine. There will be dire consequences if anyone here so much as _touches_ it." He scanned over the room. The expressions hadn't changed, except Akagi, who had gone white as a sheet.

"That is all," he finished. There was a resounding crash as half the shipgirls in the auditorium fell out of their seats.

"THAT'S IT?!" someone screeched. "YOU CALLED US ALL HERE JUST TO TALK ABOUT YOUR STUPID MUFFIN?!"

Goto ignored the outbursts as he walked down from the stage. "Meet me in my office," he said as he passed by Akagi.

The fleet carrier let out a soft whimper, but nodded.

 **AN: I was gonna do the one about Tenryuu and the metal concert, but that got lewd fast.**


	3. Rule 11

**Rule 11. Trying to use Haribo sugar free gummy bears as a prank on ship girls with out severe enough issues of a certain type will result in severe punishment.**

It was a Tuesday morning, and Kaga was both pleased with and worried about her half-sister. Akagi, after the incident with the Admiral's muffin, had decided to go on a diet. Of course, for her, a diet meant 5000 calories per day instead of 8000, but it was still weird to see Akagi eat so relatively little.

As Kaga passed by one of the lounges on her way to the archery range, she noted a glass bowl with a note on it filled to the brim with colorful... somethings. Intrigued, she went over to investigate.

Scrawled on the piece of paper taped to the bowl were the words "Akatsuki's gummy bears - do not eat!" She smirked; Akatsuki's handwriting wasn't nearly as nice. And sure enough, the bowl was filled with colorful gummy bears. Glancing around and seeing nobody, she reached in and plucked out a bear, popping it in her mouth. She chewed slowly, taking in the flavor, which was superb. Fruity, and not too sweet. Well, no one was guarding them, so might as well bring some to the range for the other carriers. That, and make sure that everyone else could enjoy the very tasty bears. Taking two large handfuls, she slipped them into a pocket and left, tearing off the sign as she went.

They were good, she mused as she ate another one.

~o~

Ooyodo strode down the corridor, several folders in hand. The life of a secretary ship was a busy one, especially for a four-star admiral like Goto.

As she passed by a lounge, she saw a glass bowl about two thirds filled with gummy bears. A growl of her stomach reminded her that she had only had a bit of melon for breakfast. A few gummy bears couldn't hurt, right? Plucking a small handful out, she went on her way. They'd make a good snack while she worked.

~o~

Nagato didn't have any such lofty reasons for taking the bears. She just thought they were cute.

~o~

Inazuma sighed as she shuffled down the corridor. Ikazuchi and Akatsuki were up to another one of their schemes again. While Hibiki stayed behind to try and keep them out of trouble, the fourth member of Desdiv 6 had shuffled out, looking for a quiet place to wait out the chaos.

The lounge was just around the corner, with its very... interesting books with the shirtless men on the cover, and even better, a bowl of gummy bears! Well, not many left; other girls must have been by to grab some. Still, the destroyer's mood was quite better as she took the bowl with her.

~o~

Akagi's eyes widened as she walked onto the archery range to find Kaga sharing some _very familiar_ gummy bears with Junyo, Ryujo, Shokaku, and Zuikaku.

 _'Nononononono, please let me be wrong.'_

Striding up to the distressingly small pile the carriers had left out, Akagi grabbed one and popped it in her mouth, turning it over. The familiar taste assaulted her tongue and she immediately spat it back out.

"Akagi?" Kaga said, turning around at the unfamiliar sound. "What are you-"

"You need to get to a bathroom right now. All of you." Getting to the bathroom would at least make it less embarrassing, for all that they were already doomed.

"Akagi, you're not making any sense," Kaga said, sounding a little frustrated. "Why would we need to-"

A loud, wet gurgle sounded throughout the archery range. All eyes turned to Kaga, who for her part had gone gray and clutched her gut.

"Igottagobye," she hastily stammered out before making a beeline for the bathroom.

The other four carriers looked at each other in puzzlement for a minute, only for their stomachs to start gurgling. Or, in Junyo's case, let out a loud, wet, and very stinky fart. The other carriers wasted no time in bolting for the bathroom themselves.

It occurred to Akagi that there was only one bathroom in range, and it had only two stalls. For five carriers.

 _'Oh dear.'_

~o~

Admiral Goto let his head thump to his desk in a rare moment of weakness. Eight ships, including most of his carrier force and his secretary ship, incapacitated with what the base's head doctor had called "the worst case of the runs I've seen. Though not the worst my grandfather saw." No less then four bathrooms were going to need to be completely rebuilt.

And all because of some stupid gummy bears.

Whoever had planted those was in for a very bad time, and not just because of him. Mutsu was absolutely livid at what had happened to her sister, and Tenryuu was on the warpath after what happened to Inazuma. Akatsuki had confessed to leaving them out, and had gotten them from RO-500, but both of them had denied knowing anything about their properties. Unfortunately, RO couldn't name who had sent them from Germany. Inquiries were being made to Admiral Hartmann's office, and justice would be served.

~o~

Bismarck felt herself lucky that she had caught this in time. "You do know what those are, right, Emden?"

"I know they're sugar-free gummy bears," the light cruiser replied with all the innocence of a newborn lamb. "And since Gneisenau is on that diet, I thought this would make a good snack. I even sent some to U-511 over in Japan!"

A grimace made its way onto the battleship's face. No easy way to do this...

"You do know those give a lot of people the worst case of the runs, right?"

"No way!" Emden gasped, covering her mouth. "... How bad?"

The grimace tightened. Introducing the cruiser to Amazon seemed like an extremely bad idea...


	4. Rule 13

**Rule 13. Disabling adult filters for the younger ship girls will most likely end up with the culprit having to properly answer all their questions.**

"And stay out!" Kinu shouted after the giggling Kagero and Kasumi and the quiet, stoic Shiranui and Arare. The girls of Desdiv 18 had barged into the room she shared with her sister Abukuma and started tearing it apart looking for something. And as Abukuma had been patently unable to stop them, Kinu had been forced to distract them and then bribe them with candy to leave.

She made a mental note to talk to RO-500 about getting some of those hell bears for the task.

"Dang it, sis, you can't just let them push you around like that!" she said to Abukuma. The light cruiser hid a wince as her sister flinched under her sharp gaze, and she carefully softened her features, all the while cursing Kitakami for her bullying. "Come on, you lead them in battle. Can't you just channel that."

"Eheheheh," Abukuma laughed nervously, rubbing the back her head. "Uh, apparently I look so scared that it activates their protective instincts. I... don't think it's gonna work on base."

Kinu groaned, cradling her head in her hands. "Screw it," she declared, standing up. "I'm gonna go teach those girls a lesson in respecting their elders."

"Uh, please don't do anything bad," Abukuma called after her as she went out the door.

"Oh, don't worry," Kinu said, smirking to herself. "I'm just gonna scar their little minds a bit."

Making her way over to the destroyer dorms, Kinu was delighted to find Desdiv 18's room unlocked and empty. Sneaking over to the desktop computer every room had, she booted it up and pulled up the settings.

"Now, where are those content filters... aha!" With a click of the mouse, the light cruiser disabled the computers adult content blockers. That would teach them.

Stealthily, she crept out of the room, not realizing what a big mistake she had made.

~o~

The next day, Kinu was sitting on her bed, giggling as she read a tankobon of a shoujo manga, when there was an insistent knocking at the door. Grumbling, she tucked the book away and answered the door to find Kagero and Shiranui, several sheets of paper tucked under Kagero's arm.

"Oh, hey Kinu!" Kagero said enthusiastically. "We were wondering if Abukuma was here, 'cause we have some questions for her."

"Um, sorry," Kinu said, a stone slowly forming in the bottom of her stomach. "She's out doing a supply run with Desdiv 17."

"Aw, phooey," the destroyer complained. "Well, come on, Shiranui, let's go. We'll have to wait for Abukuma to get back."

Silently thanking the destroyer's scatterbrained tendencies, Kinu was just about to close the door again when Shiranui pointed straight at her.

"We could ask her," she said. "She should know everything Abukuma does."

"Hey, I know!" Kagero said excitedly. "We could ask Kinu! I bet she knows all sorts of stuff!" Kagero grabbed the papers out from under her arm and presented them to Kinu.

"So, what are these ladies doing?" Kagero asked, not noticing or not caring that Kinu recoiled in horror. "Because we looked up what she was doing and Arare is pretty sure this is ana- atanomy- it would break her hips!"

The stone in Kinu's gut was by now a boulder the approximate size and weight of Mt. Fuji. She recognized that art style from when Sendai had decided it would be a good idea to show all the light cruisers some of her favorite hentai works. This one was by... Type 90? Yeah, that sounded right. At least focusing on where it came from distracted her from the horror of the destroyers finding it _and fucking showing it to her_ and **_how the fucking hell was she going to explain this_** _._

"Kinu?" Kagero asked, waving her hand in front of the frozen, glassy-eyed light cruiser. "Kinu? Hey, Kinu! KinuKinuKinuKinuKinuKinuKinuKinu-"

"Shiranui thinks we broke her," Shiranui deadpanned.

"Aw, phooey!" Kagero pouted. "Well, I guess we can go talk to the admiral."


	5. Rule 18

**Rule 18. No kanmusu is to ever be allowed to know of the existence of all-you-can-eat restaurants.**

One of the quirks of shipgirls was that they celebrated three birthdays: one for their keel-laying, one for their launch date, and one for their commissioning. No one complained; they were fighting a war, and were allowed to have times to decompress and just celebrate.

"So, where are we going?" a blindfolded Shinano asked as she was led by her hand.

"It's a secret~," Musashi sang. "But trust me, you're going to love this place. I, Musashi, searched long and hard for it, and let me tell ya, it was like trying to find a diamond in a pile of horseshit."

Shinano resisted the urge to scold Musashi for her language, and simply let herself continue to be lead. Finally, the two came to a stop, and the blindfold came off. Shinano looked up at the facade of a restaurant shaped like a barn, with a very American vibe to it. The sign read Country Gourmet, and right next to the door was another that read "All You Can Eat".

Slowly, Shinano turned to her sister, eyes sparkling and drops of saliva dripping from her mouth.

"All you can eat?" she breathed.

"Yup," Musashi replied, grinning. "And it's the best one I could find. I know you were never formally commissioned, but consider this commission day gift."

The converted carrier debated telling her she had been commissioned, but the smell of food torpedoed that idea. "Thank you, sister!" Shinano squealed, wrapping up her older sister in a tight hug. "Let's get started!"

~o~

Ken Watanabe had originally dreamed of being a chef in a high-end restaurant. To that end, he had gone to a culinary school - and flunked out in his third year. He had the management skills, he had the speed - but the quality of his cooking simply wasn't enough. Still, it wasn't all bad. His decision to attack the oxymoron of "high-quality all-you-can-eat" had proved fruitful, though his choice of location next to the Kure naval base helped. For the first few years, he had thrived.

The chef glanced out fearfully onto the dining room floor again. That... monster was still there, and still eating.

"Jun," he said to one of his assistant chefs. "How are we doing on ingredients?"

"This is the last batch," Jun said, gulping. "After this... we're done."

Ken gritted his teeth. This day was an absolute disaster, though one he could recover from. If the other shipgirls started showing up, though...

"'Scuse me, can I have three more of these?" came the voice of the monster from right in front of him. He started, staring into her deceptively innocent eyes, and glanced at the plate she was holding out. The roast turkey. Not surprising, it was his most popular item.

"It's on the way," he ground out. "Be patient, please."

"Sure!"

As the monster walked away, Ken Watanabe vowed that he would never serve another shipgirl in his restaurant again.

~o~

Admiral Mamotoya thumbed through the day's stack of paperwork and emails. Mostly the usual budget stuff and requisition forms; his subordinate could handle the mission profiles. One paper caught his eye, and he began reading through it.

By the time he was done, he was resisting the urge to go for his sake stash. This would not go down well with the base. At all.


	6. Rule 22

**Rule 22. Samuel B. Roberts is not allowed to take training torpedoes from the armory without permission.**

Samuel B. Roberts crept towards her destination, slinking past bored MPs and groggy fairies. They didn't see her, the stealth lessons from the submarines paying off. Hiding behind a bush right next to the entrance to the armory, she waited for someone to come by and open the door. She didn't have to wait long, Maury and Patterson exiting the building, chatting lightly and 32 torpedoes in hand. Just as they swung the door closed, Sammy B. dove for the open door, going into a somersault as she hit the floor.

The diminutive destroyer escort grinned as she stood up from her crouch. Stacked inside the armor was ordnance of all kinds, properly sized for shipgirls. Rockets, bombs, shells from .30 caliber to 16" super-heavy, and her ultimate prize: torpedoes. Slowly, carefully, she grabbed one and placed it inside the small wooden case she had brought for this exact purpose. When it didn't explode, she took the next one more quickly, and within minutes she had thirteen torpedoes tucked into the small case.

Getting out was a cinch. All she had to do was unlatch one of the windows and jump down. Tucking the case onto her waist, she took off for one of the torpedo training grounds. Oh, this was going to be so much fun!

~o~

"A-Are you sure we should be doing this, Sammy?"

The destroyer William D. Porter had ample reason to sound nervous. The poor girl was widely considered not only the unluckiest shipgirl in the US Navy, but in the entire world. She had knocked out more battleships than most Abyssals. And don't even get anyone started on her torpedo launching. It was to the point where she was flat-out barred from being deployed.

This meant that the fact that she was standing on the water of a torpedo training range was making her _incredibly_ nervous.

"It's fine, it's fine," Sammy B. answered, laughing. "What's the worst that could happen? These are training torpedoes, they have paint warheads."

Well, that was reassuring. Somewhat.

"Now, we're gonna start off easy," Sammy B. said, pointing to a nearby target shaped like an Abyssal RE-class battleship. "Only 500 yards. Easy enough. Give it a try."

It was easy. She just needed to point at it and launch, and if they were working, they'd run straight and hit the target. Willy D. took a deep breath to calm herself, aimed, and fi-

Shipgirl uniform shoes are the source of their propulsion, and dig into the water a little for proper motive traction. What this meant was that it was nigh impossible for a shipgirl to lose her footing in the water. Emphasis on "nigh", because today William D. Porter proved that it was quite possible.

Torpedoes flew everywhere. Two dove out of their tubes aimed right at Sammy B., both hitting her square on the forehead and not only covering her entire front side in paint, but also knocking her ass over teakettle. Five were scattered over the water and went everywhere, spraying paint all over the torpedo training range. One hit the water, ran straight, and juuuust missed the target.

And the last hit the water, accelerated for the target - and then looped around.

"Aw-" was all the destroyer got out before the torpedo hit her foot, bruising her toe and spraying paint all over her legs.

For a minute, the range was quiet as the two shipgirls regained her bearings. Finally, Sammy B. sat up and looked over the range and themselves: namely, the paint covering everything. She sighed. "Well, I know what we're doing for the next few days."

"What _you're_ doing," Nicholas corrected from behind her, causing the destroyer escort to nearly jump out of her skin. "The admiral is a lot more sympathetic to Willy D. than you."

And with that, Nicholas grabbed Sammy B. by the arm, the smaller shipgirl not resisting. "Also," the destroyer said as she turned to leave. "Nice shot."

Puzzled, William D. Porter looked down the range, where one of the 10,000 yard targets was being pulled in. And it was splattered in paint.


	7. Rule 25

**Rule 25. World of Warships is not a training simulator. You can not skip out on practice to play it.**

Nagara pounded on the door to Desdiv 2's room, trying to entice the sole occupant within to come out. Murasame, Harusame, and Samidare had been incredibly apologetic when Yudachi hadn't shown up to practice the day prior, saying that she had gotten hooked on some new MMO game, and that they had tried to get her to stop because she wasn't sleeping and was only barely eating and that much Mountain Dew could _not_ be healthy, and could they please help get her off that computer?

Privately, the light cruiser was wondering how she had bypassed content controls designed to stop this exact sort of thing, especially after the recent incident with Kinu and Desdiv 18, but that was ultimately irrelevant to the fact that Yudachi wasn't answering the door.

"Yudachi!" she shouted, getting the attention of a few passing destroyer girls. "Get off that damn computer! You've got training to get to!"

"I am training, poi!" came the answer. Nagara blinked.

"How are you training by playing an MMO game?" she wondered aloud, bewildered.

"It's called World of Warships! You play as, well, a ship and try to sink enemy ships! It develops tactical skills, poi!"

Nagara nodded. Well, okay, that made sense. If the developers had access to enough information, they could develop ships close to their real life counterparts and-

There was a loud crack as Nagara thumped her head against the wall to reboot her thought process. No, this wasn't training! You needed physical training; all the tactical knowledge in the world wouldn't help if you couldn't execute. Still, perhaps it was time for a different tactic.

"Well, you need to apologize to your sisters! They've been worried sick about you!"

"Bah! That's only because they don't know I swiped their allowance to get a premium ship, poi!"

Okay, that was just beyond the pale. From the gasps behind her, Nagara knew that her audience agreed. "Okay, that does it!" she shouted, raising a foot. "I'm gonna break this door down and drag you out!"

When there was no reply, Nagara snapped out a kick that hit the door and knocked it clean off its hinges. Stepping over the battered wood, she grabbed Yudachi by the collar of her wrinkled, stained pajamas and started dragging her out of the room, chair and all.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Yudachi screamed. "I just needed nine more hours and I could get North Carolina, poi! I'd show all those fuckers who gets to use "poi", poi!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Nagara grumbled. "Somebody turn that off for me, will ya?!"


	8. Rule 26

**Rule 26. Destroyer kanmusu are not a suitable substitute for battleship main gun turrets. You are to stop telling the newly-summoned battleships this.**

"Do you think this will work?" Admiral Holloway asked the technician standing next to him, glancing at the large pile of resources sitting in the summoning circle. "I mean, no one's ever tried summoning a shipgirl that was never commissioned."

"The theory checks out," the technician answered absentmindedly. "And Kentucky was launched, so that should up our chances considerably. If we're really lucky, we could get the guided missile version, but I doubt it."

Holloway nodded, not taking his eyes off the summoning circle. Down below, the men actually running the ritual chanted in that low, guttural tongue of theirs, the candles in the circle flickering ominously. Holloway might have found it creepy had the four Iowa sisters not been standing to the side, rigging ready to be deployed. The chanting rose in tempo and volume, and there was a flash. Through his polarized sunglasses, Holloway could see the shipgirl form, though just as an outline. And then she was there, though...

"Well, I guess we should have expected that she wouldn't have any guns," he sighed.

~o~

"USS Kentucky, BB-66, reporting for duty," she announced. She had barely finished when a blue blur tackled her.

"Oh, it's so great to finally have a younger sister!" Wisconsin squealed as she wrapped up the other ship in a tight hug.

"Called it," New Jersey said from behind them, putting her hand out. "Pay up."

"Fucking summoning shit..." Iowa grumbled as she pulled a rumpled twenty out of her pocket and placed it in New Jersey's hand.

Kentucky didn't notice the exchange, as she was somewhat occupied trying to pry off Wisconsin without much success. It took Missouri grabbing her by the ear to finally get the battleship to let go.

"Sorry about her, she gets overexcited," Missouri said apologetically, adjusting her glasses. "Anyway, welcome to personhood, sister. Your room is right next to ours; we're talking to maintenance about getting a door installed. In the meantime, just knock if you need anything. As for your rigging, we anticipated that you might not have your gun turrets, and we are ready to manufacture them for you."

"Huh?" Kentucky said, somewhat overloaded with information. "What about my- Ah! My guns!"

Groaning, Kentucky turned a plaintive gaze on Missouri. "How long?"

Missouri winced and adjusted her glasses again. "About a month. They're rather complex pieces of machinery, I'm afraid. We... do have a temporary solution, though."

From the other battleship's expression, Kentucky had a sinking feeling that she didn't approve of said solution. "So, what is it?"

New Jersey grinned and snapped her fingers. "Madison! Farenholt! Caldwell! You're up!"

The door to the summoning chamber opened, and in walked three manically grinning destroyers, Madison taking the lead. "Pleased t'meet ya!" she said, grabbing Kentucky's hand and enthusiastically pumping it up and down. "We're gonna be your temporary gun turrets while they get the real ones built!"

"WHAT!?"

Missouri frowned and turned to New Jersey, pushing her glasses up by on finger. "New Jersey... you said you floated this by Admiral Holloway."

"I lied," New Jersey bluntly answered, a wide grin on her face.


	9. Rule 28

**Rule 28. Do not let Tenryuu play** ** _Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance_** **. She may get... ideas that are not quite sound.**

"Happy Launch Day, Tenryuu!"

Despite herself, Tenryuu felt her face heat up as she took in the cake, streamers, and small stack of presents. "Aw, you guys are the best! So, cake or presents first?"

"Cake!" came the chorus from the destroyers of Desdiv 6.

"Presents it is!" Tenryuu decided to a chorus of disappointed groans. Grabbing a large, flexible package, she glanced at the card. "From Tatsuta. Probably should've expected you to get me clothes, huh?" Tearing open the wrapping paper and plastic packaging, Tenryuu pulled out a dress.

A black, strapless, very short dress.

Tenryuu looked askance at the garment, then gave Tatsuta the stink-eye. "I don't know why you got me this, because I'm not wearing it."

"Oh, you will," Tatsuta replied demurely. "You always do."

"Whatever," Tenryuu scoffed, carelessly tossing the dress onto her bed. "On to the next present!"

The next one was from Hibiki, and turned out to be a video game, cover proudly displaying a slim, armored man with a shock of white hair and a robotic dog. "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, huh?" Tenryuu said, looking it over. "Well, it _looks_ awesome. Thanks, Hibiki!"

With the other presents being the usual mix of food, clothes, and gift cards, the group dove into the cake. And later that day, Tenryuu plugged the game into one of the communal Playstations.

"Alright, let's see what you've got, game," she said as the start menu appeared.

 _Fifteen minutes later:_

 _"Rules of na-ture!"_

"Oh my god did I just _throw_ that building-sized mech?!" Tenryu shouted - not squealed, despite what some might tell you - as Raiden did indeed flip the giant Metal Gear before jumping onto it and drawing his sword.

"This is so fucking awesome!"

~o~

A few days later, Desdiv 6 was called on another expedition, and as usual Tenryuu lead the small destroyer group. The run was uneventful and fruitful, and the five ships were about halfway back when an Abyssal decided to ruin their day. Dressed in armored thigh-high boots, a similarly black leotard, and two large triple turrets extending out from the rigging, she was easily identifiable as a NE-class heavy cruiser.

And yet, Tenryuu didn't feel afraid.

"You girls go on ahead," she said with a smirk, drawing her sword. "Big sis Tenryuu will handle this."

"A-Are you sure, nanodesu?" Inazuma stammered.

"Yeah! We can help you take down this big meany!" Akatsuki added.

"Nah, I got this," Tenryuu grinned. Gripping her sword in two hands, above her head and pointed down, she charged at the Abyssal, a new battle cry ringing out over the waves.

"RULES OF NATURE!"

~o~

Tenryuu groaned as she sunk deeper into the repair pool. "Oh, god, I'm gonna be sore for weeks."

"Well, you did take on a NE-class heavy cruiser by yourself," Tatsuta said, a scolding tone in her voice. "And tried to use your sword on it instead of any torpedoes. If Atago and Takao hadn't been in the area..."

"Yeah, I know, I was an idiot," Tenryuu agreed. "Thanks for looking over the girls while I get repaired. I really appreciate it."

"Mm. Consider it a favor you will need to pay back in the future."

Tenryuu shuddered, and sent a quick prayer out that it wouldn't be too painful. "Gotcha."

"In any case, I need to get back to training with the girls. Have to work on unit cohesion, after all," Tatsuta said as she stood up, brushing imaginary dust off her skirt. "I heard they had the DVDs of a new anime in the lounge. Maybe you could check that out when you're done?"

The only reply was a contented grunt, and Tatsuta left, thinking over that new anime she had mentioned. From what little she had seen, the main character seemed pretty close to Tenryuu in personality, and definitely so in appearance. This 'Kill la Kill' should be right up her alley.


	10. Rule 31

**Rule 31. Mogami is forbidden from operating motor vehicles. The base wall is still broken from the last time she tried driving.**

"Okay, so, what do I do first?"

Mogami fidgeted slightly in the driver's seat of the running Toyota Corolla she was in, her hands pointedly everywhere but the driving controls. In the passenger seat sat Kirishima, who was the instructor in charge of this particular lesson.

"Well, first, just put your hands on the steering wheel," Kirishima said. "The usual position is called "ten o'clock and two o'clock, if that makes sense?"

Nodding, the heavy cruiser placed her hands on the steering wheel in close to the correct positions, though her arms were quivering with tension.

"Good. It doesn't need to be exact, and you'll get more natural at it as you practice." Kirishima hmm'ed thoughtfully. "Why don't we try the transmission, then. Grab the handle, push the button, and pull down until the light is next to the D."

Nodding shakily, Mogami grasped the stick and pulled down - just a little too far.

"Ah, up one more gear," Kirishima said, and was rewarded with a quick correction. The car immediately lurched forward at a slow pace. "Ah, brake!"

Mogami hastily jammed her foot on the brake, causing the car to lurch to a stop.

"Okay, remember: when in drive, the car moves unless you have your foot on the brake," Kirishima explained. "Let's just... coast around a bit that way, okay?"

Nodding shakily, Mogami took her foot off the brake and allowed the car to roll forward. Kirishima had her take a few laps of the parking lot they were in, and by the end of the third lap Mogami was feeling much more relaxed.

Perhaps a little too relaxed.

"Good job, Mogami, you're getting the hang of this," Kirishima said. "Now, before we call it a day, why don't you try putting your foot on the gas? Just a little."

Nodding, Mogami shifted her foot and pressed down on the gas, not stopping until hit the metal. The result was eminently predictable.

"Ah, too much gas!" Kirishima cried out as the car pressed her back into the seat from the g-forces. "Lift your foot up, lift your foot up!"

Mogami, panicking, didn't hear. Her foot remained firmly on the gas pedal, and in any case she didn't have much time react before the car plowed into one of the walls of the base, crumpling the front of the car and collapsing the aging brickwork.

"Okay, lesson two is how to apply the gas without doing something like this," Kirishima lectured from around the airbag. "Well, if Admiral Goto lets you continue. I have a feeling he might not."


	11. Rule 33

**Rule 33. Ship girls are no longer allowed to refer to 3rd Fleet HQ as, "Those fucking feather merchant retards with no clue how the world outside their plush offices actually works."**

Chevalier, DD-451, US Navy, was in a bad mood. Luckily, it was one easy to diagnose. Unluckily, it was one very hard to eliminate.

"TF 57, you're too close together. Open the formation."

Chevalier groaned as they were forced once again out of their formation. They weren't missile ships! They needed to stay close and in a specific formation if they wanted to be able to defend themselves against aircraft and submarines! Stupid Third Fleet fuckheads!

One of the quirks of the American shipgirl program was that all shipgirls were nominally in the Seventh Fleet, but with the Japanese effectively taking responsibility for the Western Pacific, that meant the Seventh Fleet had to operate in what had become the Third Fleet's traditional stomping grounds. Making matters worse was that the Third Fleet was all traditional ships, and thus full of officers who knew absolutely nothing about shipgirl operations. And when Admiral Holloway was away, they had a bad habit of trying to take control of shipgirl task forces like Task Force 57.

The force in question consisted of the Fletcher class destroyers Chevalier, Pringle, Leutze, Watson, Conway, Thatcher, Hazelwood, and famed Taffy 3 survivor Heermann. Moffett pitched in flagship duties and some extra surface firepower, while cruisers Denver, Columbia, Boston, and Canberra rounded out the force.

And here they were, puttering about deaf, blind, and out of position to do anything, because those fucking feather merchant retards with no clue how the world outside their plush offices actually works didn't grasp that the Abyssals couldn't track you by your signal emissions, that they didn't have guided weapons to cover formation gaps, and worst of all _weren't even using the Abyssal tracking system_ and instead had put a fucking _E-2D_ overhead that had turned back two hours ago for lack of fuel and could only tenuously communicate with them anyway!

Suddenly, Chevalier became very aware that her shipmates were all looking at her funny. A sinking feeling began to creep into her gut. "Uh, did I say that out loud?"

"Yes, yes you did," Porter replied over the radio. "Third Fleet HQ is furious, and Admiral Holloway is definitely going to hear about this."

Chevalier groaned and put her head in her hands, starting as Heermann put a hand on her shoulder. "Privately, I agree with you," her sister said quietly. "But there is a time and place for calling out your nominal superiors, even if they're idiots. Don't worry too much, though. Admiral Holloway has a lot more pull than those morons."

Chevalier was almost glad that an Abyssal cruiser-destroyer group picked that moment to crash the party. Otherwise she might have scuttled herself out of shame.

 **AN: I have no idea if this actually conforms to actual USN tactics. Sue me.**


	12. Rule 35

**Rule 35. No ship girl is allowed to attempt _any_ experiments seen on _MythBusters_ without proper supervision.**

"Hello, everyone, Naka-chan here!" the light cruiser said into her webcam, standing on a grassy field. "For today's stream, we have a very special guest, one of my best friends, Yubari! Say hi, Yubari!"

"Hello," Yubari said, waving at the camera. "Many of you may not know this, but I like to tinker with mechanical stuff in my spare time." She grinned, stepping back to let the camera pan up. "So, I'll give you two guesses as to the topic of today's stream, and the first two don't count."

The camera zoomed out to reveal a long rail, a solid concrete wall fronted by a metal plate, and a squirming Abyssal NE-class heavy cruiser tied to a post.

"That's right! We're going to be recreating some of Mythbusters' experiments!" Naka announced, sweeping her arm down the rail. "And we're gonna start off with the "cut a car in half" myth."

"But, well, we don't want to _perfectly_ recreate the experiment," Yubari sniffed. "After all, you have already seen it before. So, we decided to update it a bit."

The camera shook as someone offscreen picked it up and began carrying it, following the two light cruisers as they jogged to the end of the track. Standing on the end was some odd contraption, what looked like a hunk of metal strapped to a rocket motor.

Which was exactly what it was. If you let out an involuntary scream at that, then congratulations, dear reader, you are still sane.

"Rams are no longer a part of naval combat, mostly because they ended up sinking more friendly ships than enemy ships," Yubari explained as she patted the metal monstrosity. "But that begs the question: how effective are they when they do hit? Our job is to find out. We improvised a shipgirl-scale ram bow, and strapped it to this two-stage rocket. By the time it leaves the track, it should be going over 1000 kilometers per hour, more than enough to replicate the kinetic energy of a battleship at flank speed."

"The rocket will leave the track, go about six feet or so, and hit the Abyssal dead on. Behind it we've got a foot of concrete and a 25mm armor plate we, ahem, 'borrowed' from Akashi. All of this should give us a good idea of what a modern naval ram would be like."

There was another shaky run with the camera, following Yubari to a trench in the ground, where Naka already was standing. "Remember, everyone, safety first! Even when you're a shipgirl, it's always better to not take any risks!"

"Alright, 'modern ram impact'. Firing rocket in 3... 2... 1..."

The rocket fired, streaking down the rail at high speed. Then the second stage fired, accelerating the sled even more, and the entire contraption was practically a blur when it slammed into the hapless Abyssal, throwing up a massive cloud of dust.

"H-Holy crap!" Naka exclaimed.

"Okay, I think I might have underestimated the thrust..." Yubari said in a stunned monotone.

When the dust cleared, all that remained were some scattered chunks of concrete. The Abyssal was nowhere in sight.

"Please tell me this isn't live," Yubari groaned a few minutes later.

She was right to be worried; they had basically turned the stream into a snuff film, given that the largest part of the Abyssal had been the approximate size of a small orange. The concrete wall had been shattered and thrown into the wind, and the 25mm armor plate had been turned into a metal pretzel. All quite spectacular, and all indicative of one very dead Abyssal.

"S-Sorry, Yubari," Naka said nervously. "At least you won't take too much of the heat."

"Yeah, after this and the Five Nights at Freddy's stream, the Admiral might just stop these weekly streams," Yubari said absentmindedly. She flinched at the sudden *whump!* behind her, and turned around to find that Naka had fainted.

"Figures," Yubari chuckled grimly to herself.


	13. Rule 39

**Rule 39. Kanmusu are not tugboats.**

 **AN: Consider this an apology for borking up Rule 35.**

Admiral Hartmann nursed a cup of coffee as he gazed contentedly over Wilhelmshaven harbor, something that had become a habit when he was taking a break from administrative duties. Not only was he able to watch the standard cargo ships - and the navy's few frigates still afloat - come and go, he was also able to watch his shipgirls practicing various maneuvers in the waters of the harbor.

In fact, there were several out there right now. Hipper and Lutzow were locked in an intricate dance, each trying to get a bead on each other, with a gaggle of destroyers simulating a torpedo run. A submarine was popping her head out of the water; while he didn't know every sub girl on base, considering there were hundreds of them, her rigging marked her as one of the Type VII U-boats. And out at the far end of the harbor was Scharnhorst, towing one of the massive cargo ships. Ah, always good to see the girls helping out around the port. Oh, and there was another submarine girl popping her head above-

Wait a minute.

Rubbing his eyes, Hartmann turned his gaze back to the outer harbor where, sure enough, one of his few battleships was tugging a goddamn cargo ship. What was going on here?

~o~

A few minutes of fast-paced walking - not running, admirals don't run - got him down to the docks. Scharnhorst was still towing in the cargo ship, and another one was being steadily unloaded by another group of destroyers, headed by the light cruiser Nurnberg.

Hartmann seethed at the gross misuse, though he noted that seeing diminutive destroyers with the appearance of young children haul multiton cargo containers did a better job to drive home their power than anything else he had seen. Still, that didn't stop him from marching up to the harbor master supervising the job and grabbing him by the collar.

"Hey, what gi-" The harbormaster cut off an angry retort upon seeing the admiral's stars on his shoulder and blazing anger in his eyes. "Er, I mean, what can I do for you, sir?"

"You can tell me why the hell you have destroyers unloading that cargo ship," Hartmann ground out between gritted teeth. "And then you're going to tell me how you... coerced them into doing so."

The harbormaster gulped audibly, sweat dripping down his face. "W-Well... I, uh..."

 _'Shitshitshitshitshit!'_ he screamed in his head. _'Can't think. Panicking. Act on instinct.'_

"We offered candy!"

 _'Instincts bad.'_ he thought as Hartmann's face grew, if anything, even more thunderous.

"Ah, lay off of him, Admiral," Nurnberg replied. "We're the ones who approached him, so no need to go all Papa Wolf on our behalf."

Admiral Hartmann started in surprise, dropping the petrified harbormaster as he did so. "What?"

The light cruiser sighed. "You know how it is with kids. They want all the newest toys, and most of their pay is locked away in a trust fund. Not saying I don't agree with that, it's just... sometimes their allowance runs out, and they still want to buy stuff." She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "This was their idea, you know? I'm just here to make sure they don't do something stupid. And that's all this is, a bunch of kids wanting some extra spending money."

Though he didn't want to, Hartmann found himself relaxing. Thank God, no brutal exploitation of his shipgirls. That was good. Though, it didn't answer the question that brought him out here in the first place...

"What about Scharnhorst? I know she gets her full pay every week."

Nurnberg's eyes widened in comical surprise. "Wait, what? What's that ditz doing?"

In lieu of an answer, Hartmann pointed out to sea, where the battleship was tucking the cargo ship she had been towing up against pier.

Groaning, the light cruiser buried her face in her palm. "Okay, I'm 95% sure Scharnhorst got conned into doing that. Go tear those guys a new asshole, Admiral."

Hartmann didn't reply, too busy stomping over to the other pier. Heads... were going to _roll_ today.


	14. Rule 40

**Rule 40. Iowa is not allowed any alcohol at all.**

The doors to O'Bannon's, an Irish pub located in Portsmouth, banged open, admitting the massive froms of Iowa, Tirpitz, and Musashi into the bar.

"Yo, O'Bannon!" Iowa called out to the bartender. "These fuckers think they can outdrink me! I'm here to disabuse them of that notion."

"Hmph," Tirpitz sneered. "As if you can compete with Teutonic superiority in that field. We start drinking when you Americans are still suckling from your mother's teats."

"Ha! All that alcohol must have pickled your fucking brain as well as your liver if you think that'll help you!" Iowa taunted. "You don't know real fucking drink until you've had some homemade corn whiskey! Not that weakass beer you guys drink in Hun land."

"Aren't you gonna join in?" the destroyer asked curiously as Musashi sat down at the bar and began scanning over the drink selection.

"Nah, I don't need to puff up my chest to feel superior," Musashi answered, very deliberately sweeping her hands over her barely restrained breasts. "Anyway, what would you recommend for this?"

"Well, normally I'd get out one of the better craft beers I've got on tap," O'Bannon replied, before glancing at the two bickering battleships. "But somehow I don't think those two will accept that. So, I think I'm gonna break out the vodka selection Marat dropped off on her last trip."

Musashi's eyes widened, almost twinkling. "Oh, genuine Russian vodka! That's perfect. Pour up the first round of shots, will ya?" Turning around, she sucked in a deep breath before bellowing at the other two battleships. "Yo, fuckheads, we're starting!"

Growling, Iowa and Tirpitz fired one last glare at each other before sitting at the bar. Each shipgirl grabbed the shot glass in front of them and upended it in one go, sighing contentedly.

"Next!"

~o~

Iowa her face a fierce red and her posture noticeably unsteady, glared at Musashi, who aside from a blush across her face was still notably coherent. Tirpitz had vanished fifteen minutes prior to go worship the porcelain throne, and O'Bannon had a sneaking suspicion that she had passed out.

"This- this is bullshit," Iowa slurred. "This... ain't any fun no more... Y'know what? Y'win, Musshi. I'm... gonna go find something actually _fun_ t'do..." And with that, she staggered out the door of the pub to parts unknown.

"You're... not gonna stop her?" Musashi asked O'Bannon, her speech far more comprehensible.

"Are you kidding me?" O'Bannon scoffed. "When she's this drunk? Hell no!"

~o~

Iowa groaned as she became aware of one of Salem's automatic 8" guns trying to bore a hole in her skull. Sitting up was fruitless and only scraped her bare skin over the smooth rock. Opening her eyes was no go, either. At least she had a small, fluffy pillow tucked against her chest, even if it moved just a tad much for her liking.

It took a few minutes for her hangover-addled brain to connect the dots, but when it did she almost flung herself screaming into the Atlantic.

 _'Okay, I'm naked, on a rock in the middle of nowhere, with...'_ She cracked open her eyes, taking in the white hair and body and golden eyes of the Northern Ocean Princess Abyssal whose head was snuggled in between her breasts.

"Fucking hell, what did I do last night?" she wondered aloud. Sitting up and letting go of the Northern Ocean Princess, who immediately dove onto the water and bolted, Iowa took in the veritable sea of Abyssal corpses surrounding the island, which she now realized was St. Helena.

Wracking her brain, she managed to dig up two relevant pieces of information: the drinking contest she'd had with Musashi and Tirpitz, and William D. Porter's shocked expression as she swung the destroyer up in a massive and very naked bear hug.

"Fuck. Well, I hope I at least won the damn drinking contest."


	15. Rule 44

**Rule 44. Ship girls are no longer allowed to compete in the intra-service intramural sports. The Army figured out what we're doing and called us out on it, so no more.**

"Alright, guys," Lieutenant Matt Jenkins, US Army, said to the twenty-one other men standing outside the football field with him. "Good news. The squids' entire team got... some illness, the flu or something. So they're all out, and the squids had to put together a scratch team. While I won't see we've got this, were I a betting man I'd be betting on us."

"So I guess you weren't a betting man when you lost fifty bucks at poker last Saturday?" came a voice from the back.

"Shut up, you idiots know what I mean," Jenkins replied, laughing. "Alright, let's go beat their asses!"

The rest of the team whooped in agreement and charged onto the field. And were quickly brought up short as they saw just _who_ was on the field.

West Virginia tossed a football to Enterprise, who caught it and lobbed a deep past to a streaking Maury. Standing off to the side Helena was indicating something on a laminated chart to Canberra and Alaska, and off in another quarter of the field were Tennessee, California, Colorado, and Maryland all in some sort of meditation - or in Maryland's case, praying.

And all of them were wearing football uniforms.

Jenkins gulped audibly, and he could sense more than see the rest of the team wavering in their courage. Something had to be done, or they could just forfeit for how effective they'd be. But before he could rally his teammates, something blotted out the sun.

Jenkins looked forward into the jersey-coated chest, breasts noticeable even under the padding, and he slowly looked up. And up. And finally into the face of USS Louisiana.

 _'91,'_ he noted in the corner of his mind that wasn't gibbering in a combination of fear and anger. _'She's a defensive lineman.'_

"Hey, are you our opponents? I'm Louisiana, nice to meet you!" Her hand grasped his and pumped it up and down, Jenkins too stunned to protest. "Sorry about the rest of the defense not being here. Iowa and Wisconsin were arguing about who would get the most sacks today."

It should be noted at this point that Jenkins played quarterback for the Army team. Thus it was not surprising that he promptly turned ashen at the news that two vicious Iowa-class battleships and the most powerful shipgirl on the planet were going to be going for him, specifically.

"Huh, you're not much of a talker," Louisiana griped. "Ah well, see you on the field!" And with that, she walked off. The soldiers didn't even notice the unconscious sway of her hips.

"Uh, so, are we forfeiting?" one of the soldiers piped up. "Because I really don't want to-"

"YES!" Jenkins shouted. "Yes, yes we are. And then we are finding the highest-ranked officer we can find and _complaining_. Because this is _bullshit._ "


	16. Rule 49

**Rule 49. Using kaiju films - ESPECIALLY the Godzilla franchise - to terrify the younger destroyers is strictly forbidden.**

Isuzu hummed cheerfully as she helped herself to breakfast, the mess hall filled with the sound of chattering shipgirls. Grabbing a hard-boiled egg at the end of the line, she scanned around the room for the three ships of Desdiv 31. Oddly, it took her longer than usual to find them, and when she did it became quite clear why.

Naganami was alarmingly subdued, given her usual hot-blooded personality, and the bags under her eyes attested to a serious lack of sleep. That, and she kept nodding off and jerking herself awake in a continuous cycle. Takanami was constantly glancing around in fear, and were those lead-line gloves she was wearing? The oddest thing, though, was Makinami, who was nowhere to be seen.

Isuzu narrowed her eyes. Something was up, and the other ships eating breakfast were beginning to take notice.

"So, what's up with you guys?" she said as she sat down with the two destroyers, noting both shipgirls flinch. "And where's Makinami?"

Naganami promptly fell flat on her face, asleep, and it took Takanami a few minutes to answer. "K-Kitakami sh-showed us a-a m-movie l-last night, k-kamo," the destroyer stammered out. "M-Makinami i-is in o-our room, u-under her c-covers."

Isuzu's eyes widened as dozens of different movies, all eminently unsuitable for children, cycled through her mind. "Wait, what movie did she-"

 _ **"GOJIRA!"**_ Naganami cried out as she jerked awake again. The destroyer glanced around the room with wild eyes. "I'm not going out onto the ocean again! You can't make me!" And with that, she dove backwards, into and _through_ the wall behind her, screaming all the way.

It was a good thing the torpedo cruiser wasn't in the room, because Isuzu might have strangled her. And from the expressions on the faces of Kongo, Ashigara, and Tenryuu, she wasn't the only one. And then all four paled as they realized that Kitakami _wasn't in the room._

"HEADCOUNT!" Kongo called out in English. "All destroyers sound off!"

A chorus of voices rang out through the cafeteria, with two notable exceptions.

"Desdiv 6 and Desdiv 24 are missing!" Sendai called out.

"Tenryuu, go find Desdiv 6! Ashigara, Desdiv 24! Isuzu, see if you can calm down Naganami," Kongo barked out, uncharacteristic authority in her voice. Tenryuu and Ashigara immediately dashed off to find their destroyers. Isuzu made to follow, but paused for a second.

"And what are you going to do, Kongo?"

"Me?" Kongo smiled, an tooth-filled, ear to ear grin. "I'm going to find Kitakami."

~o~

Tenryuu sprinted down the corridors, head on a swivel as she looked for her wayward charges. At this time of day they should be in one of the lounges, reading one of the romance novels Inazuma didn't think she knew about, but there were a lot of lounges on base. She sprinted by one of them, with a movie playing, only to screech to a halt as she realized just what was playing on the TV.

"Okay, really hoping it was Kitakami who left Snakes on a Plane running and not someone else," the light cruiser muttered to herself. Striding over to the TV, she grabbed the remote to end the movie, and-

"Hey, Tenryuu, what are you... watching..."

Tenryuu winced as all of Desdiv 6 went white, looking from the doorway at the rather gruesome scene on the screen.

 _'Fuck me sideways...'_

~o~

It hadn't taken long for Ashigara to track down the errant Desdiv 24. Unfortunately, that had been because she had heard them shrieking in terror, and burst into one of the lounges cowering on some pillows, the original version of _The Hills Have Eyes_ playing on the TV. Panicked, the heavy cruiser had done the first thing she could think of to stop the movie.

Honestly, one broken TV was a small price to pay.

As she comforted the terrified, sobbing destroyers, Ashigara once again vowed to not let Kitakami go unpunished.

~o~

Kitakami panted as she tried to stay very still in the closet she was in. Hopefully the monster wouldn't find her, as running had proved futile. Faster though she might be, the monster was persistent and had a way of just... showing up whenever she thought she'd get away.

The torpedo cruiser promptly slowed her breath as she heard the monster's telltale heavy footsteps not ten feet away.

 _'Please don't find me, please don't find me,'_ she chanted as the monster stomped around for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the footsteps started to become quieter, as if it was leaving. And then they were gone, and Kitakami couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Relief that was short-lived, as a slim, deceptively human hand crashed through the back of the closet, as well as the concrete wall behind. Frozen, Kitakami was unable to do anything as the hand grabbed her and pulled her through the wall, leaving her coughing and groaning on the floor. Footsteps sounded off right next to her, and slowly, Kitakami looked upward, past the skirt and haori, to the face with the glowing eyes and frightfully wide grin with too many teeth and framed by long brown hair.

 _"Heee~ey."_


	17. Rule 51

**Rule 51. Akagi is no longer allowed to order refreshments for movie night. No matter what you think, 200 pounds of popcorn is too much.**

Movie night was one of the most hotly anticipated days of the week for Yokosuka Naval Base. Dozens of shipgirls would converge on the theater, eager to see the hundreds of movies they'd missed. It wasn't all sunshine and roses; one night had seen Jack and Jill played - for the five minutes it took for the shipgirls to nearly riot. The most popular? The Toy Story trilogy, the third movie causing every shipgirl to cry.

Today, they were planning to show Iron Man as a primer for the larger MCU, and everything was ready. Well, all except the refreshments. Those were late.

"Where's the damn popcorn!?" Maya shouted.

"You said a bad word!" came the chorus not two seconds later. Maya promptly blushed, Kinu reaching over to smack her upside the head.

"Oh, don't worry, everyone, I had them delivered!" Akagi answered. "They should be here any minute now."

That provoked a lot of excited whispering as the destroyers wondered what Akagi would consider proper refreshments for a movie night. They got their answer when a delivery man wheeled in a tub of popcorn bigger than he was.

"Wow," Akatsuki breathed. "That's a lot of popcorn. How're we gonna share it all?"

"Share?" Akagi asked, mystified. "This is all for me. The rest of the popcorn should be coming soon."

True enough, a cardboard box packed full of large popcorn tubs was wheeled in not a minute later, followed by plates of nachos, over a hundred hot dogs, stacks of pretzels and churros, and to the delight of the destroyers, a large freezer full of popsicles and ice cream bars.

"I'm... almost afraid to ask..." Furutaka started. "But where are the drinks?"

"Holy shit they've got, like, a dozen of those fancy soda machines back here!" Soryu shouted from the lobby. "And a sushi bar! Akagi, how the hell did you pay for this?"

"Oh, the admiral probably gave her his credit card like he did when the rest of us had to buy refreshments," Mutsu answered. Her eyes slowly widened to comical levels as comprehension sank in. "Akagi... I do not envy you right now."

"Why?"

~o~

"Admiral, your credit card company is on line one."

Admiral Goto sighed. "Put them on... Hello? ... I'm over my limit? That can't be, I checked it yesterday. ... A purchase of how much?! ... To what catering company?! ... Hang on, let me check something." Putting the phone on hold, Goto turned, very slowly, to Ooyodo. "Ooyodo, did we have the movie night last night?"

Ooyodo only avoided shuddering at the Admiral's thousand-yard-stare by dint of having seen it enough times. "Yes, admiral. Akagi provided the catering, if I recall."

Ooyodo watched, fascinated, as Admiral Goto's whole body seemed to shudder. "Remind me how we decided who would provide refreshments?"

"You just had me draw up a list and randomize it," the secretary ship answered, very carefully.

"Right, now I remember," Goto answered, still deathly, unnaturally calm. "Let me just finish up this call. Sorry about the wait. ... No, no, I'll pay in full. ... Thank you. Goodbye."

Hanging up the phone, Goto slowly stood and took a deep breath.

"We got a NE-class cruiser a few days ago," Ooyodo said without looking up from her work.

"Thanks. While I'm at it, could you get Akagi up here, please?"

"Certainly."

As Admiral Goto walked off towards the small prison the base maintained, Ooyodo found she almost pitied the poor Abyssal about to meet Admiral Goto.

Almost.

 **AN: Just to be clear, he's not going to torture the Abyssal or anything like that. He's just gonna fight her.**


	18. Rule 56

**Rule 56. Shipgirls are forbidden from getting tattoos.**

"Hey, Akatsuki, want the computer? I'm taking a break from Club Penguin until tomorrow."

"Thanks!" the destroyer replied, sliding into the chair as Ikazuchi got up from it. Clicking on the homepage button, Akatsuki contemplated what to do.

"I know!" she decided. "I'll google what an elegant lady would look like! Gotta look the part, too."

Clicking on the "image" tab, Akatsuki typed "elegant lady" into the searchbar, and was confronted with thousands of images of beautiful women in gorgeous outfits going as far back as Ancient Greece and from Japan to California.

"Wow..." Akatsuki breathed as she skimmed through the pages, idly saving a few choice images. "This is amazing. And- wow, look at that lady!"

The picture in question was of an Asian woman wearing an half of an elegant kimono, the top let down to expose her back - and the large, elaborate dragon tattoo crawling across her body.

"Tattoo..." Akatsuki mused. "That looks amazing! I wonder where I can get one?" Deciding to ask the most knowledgeable person she knew, she clicked back to Google, though not before printing out the picture in question.

"Hibiki, the computer's all yours!" she called as she dashed out the door. The stoic destroyer nodded, then sat at the computer and disabled the content filters. Her sisters were gone, and she couldn't order vodka without disabing the filters.

~o~

Kongo took a sip from the cup of tea she was drinking. It was an exotic blend San Francisco had shipped her, and to her pleasant surprise it was actually proving to be very good tea. It was also nice to find an actual tea connoisseur among the American shipgirls; most of them preferred that cold, sweetened drek, or coffee.

As Kongo refilled her cup, she heard a knock at her door. "Come in!" she announced, taking another sip.

The door creaked open, admitting Akatsuki. Kongo's smile widened imperceptibly; something about the destroyer's attempts to become an "elegant lady" made them endearing instead of aggravating. Clearly she had another question on the topic.

"So, what brings you here, Akatsuki?" she asked.

"Do you know where I could get a tattoo like this?" Akatsuki asked, pulling out a printout of a woman with an admittedly beautiful dragon tattoo snaking across her back.

That didn't stop Kongo from shattering her tea cup.

"Ara, this one must have been damaged. I'd better get a new teacup." Standing up, she went over to the small cupboard she kept her tea set in, selecting another cup.

"So, about that tattoo-"

"No!" Kongo suddenly shouted, whirling around to glare Akatsuki dead in the eye. "Who told you about tattoos?! Was it Tenryuu? Junyou? Kitakami again?!"

"N-No one!" Akatsuki screeched, scrambling back and away from the enraged battleship. "I found it doing a Google image search!"

For a long moment Kongo didn't look away, but she finally dropped her gaze, much to Akatsuki's relief. That said, the deep, slightly hysterical laughter and red aura were not comforting in the least.

"Huh huh, I'll have to have a word with the computer technicians," Kongo chuckled. Before Akatsuki could react, Kongo opened up the grate to the heating system and jumped into the duct, leaving the dumbfounded destroyer behind.

"Okaaaaay..." Akatsuki said faintly. "No tattoo. Got it."

~o~

In San Diego, Admiral Holloway suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He immediately braced for something bad to happen, and was not disappointed when Harder barged into his office. In her combat outfit. Whose bright idea was it to have all the submarines wear swimsuits?!

"Admiral, look!" Harder said, holding up her left arm. "I got kill decals of the destroyers I sank tattooed onto my arm!"

Decals that were the spitting image of the shipgirl versions of each destroyer she had sunk. It occurred to Holloway that Harder must never be allowed to meet the Japanese shipgirls until well after the war. Maybe fifty years after. Oh well, at least they were just on the arm and not somewhere more objectionable.

"Oh, yeah, I also got one on my lower back!"

Holloway nearly choked on his own spit as Harder turned around to reveal a _tramp stamp_ of her old logo as a submarine sitting just above the waistline of her bikini bottoms. He promptly jabbed the intercom button, selecting the Big 5 dorms.

"Maryland, could you come to my office? I have a shipgirl in need of a reminder as to why certain regulations are in place." As bad as the situation was, Holloway couldn't help but get some grim satisfaction from Harder's face paling.

 _"Certainly, Admiral. I'll be there in five."_

"I-I'll, uh-"

Harder was cut off by a steel door slamming into place, leaving her trapped in the office.

"Never mind."


	19. Rule 58

**Rule 58. All personnel are forbidden from distributing erotic artwork of, well, anyone.**

It was not until a week after the "Movie Massacre" that Kitakami was let out of the infirmary, with the caveat that she attend weekly counseling sessions. She expected cold shoulders and disdainful looks. She did not expect a lot of pointing and giggling. Even from the sailors!

Finally, after the seventh time it happened, she marched up to the perpetrators, Kako and Furutaka.

"What are you giggling at?" she snarled.

The two heavy cruisers glanced at each other and simultaneously grinned wide, toothy grins. "You tell us, miss _Siscon._ "

Kitakami immediately flushed red, her mental train going careening off the rails. "W-What?!"

"Oh, you don't need to be ashamed, none of us will judge," Furutaka stated. "Besides, that is some seriously kinky stuff you two get off to. It's given me _ideas._ "

"Yeah, we're all really supportive of you and Ooi's relationship," Kako added.

 _'This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening,'_ Kitakami chanted in her head. _'Well, it could be worse. At least Kongo isn't-'_

"KITAKAMI!"

 _'Oh Jesus no.'_

"I am so glad you found BURNING LOVE! Even if it is with your sister," Kongo announced, very loudly. "Ah, well, BURNING LOVE! comes in all forms. I won't judge."

"WHERE ARE YOU GETTING ALL THIS FROM?!" Kitakami wailed.

"From this!" Kako happily announced, pulling a small book from her pocket. Kitakami took one look at it and recoiled, not even reading the title, for the cover was of her and Ooi drawn anime-style in a very... lurid pose. "It's soo romantic!"

"Who wrote this!" Kitakami yelled, glancing at the cover. "Aoba! I'm going to kill her!"

"Oh, whatever, it's harmless fun," Furutaka said dismissively.

"INDEED!" Kongo added. "Besides, it's just the ONE book!"

"Lewd..." Hibiki said as Desdiv 6 walked by, pointing to Furutaka, Kongo, and Kitakami in turn. All three froze before frantically following the destroyer.

"Hibiki! What do you mean, lewd?!" Furutaka frantically asked.

"H-How much has Aoba drawn?" Kongo asked, worriedly.

Hibiki merely pointed to a bulletin board they were passing by. Plastered all over it were erotic drawings of what seemed like every ship in Yokosuka above destroyer tonnage, Furutaka and Kongo included.

"Aoba must die," Kitakami stated flatly.

"Agreed," Furutaka and Kongo chorused.

"And quick, before Ooi gets back from her mission," Kitakami added with a shudder, one mirrored by the other two ships.


	20. Rule 60

**Rule 60. "She followed me home, can I keep her?" is not a valid excuse to bring an Abyssal on base. See rule 29.**

Admiral Goto watched, knuckles clenched, as the blips representing shipgirls and Abyssals danced around each other. Periodically, one would vanish from the electronic plot, though thankfully none of the ones representing his shipgirls had been marked with the dreaded black of "destroyed", instead tagged with the orange of "heavy damage" and the red of "crippled". Still, Goto didn't relax until the last enemy blip disappeared from the screen, whereupon he let himself slump into his chair with a sigh of relief as the operations room erupted into shouts of triumph.

"Don't relax just yet," he warned them after the cheers died down. "Get Akashi out there; I don't want to lose any of our damaged. Are the baths prepped?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good. We're going to need them."

Already, the casualty list was being printed, and it was a long one. While there had been no fatalities, not a single shipgirl had avoided taking damage, and nearly 40% of the deployed shipgirls had been taken out of the fight. He shook his head in amusement as he saw that Kaga was one of them with a balky leg; field diagnosis had been "Shipgirl equivalent of a busted engine". Guess the carrier was due for a refit.

Finishing up the casualty report and handing it off to a passing ensign, he happened to glance at the plot again, and narrowed his eyes at what he saw: namely, an Abyssal trailing after the fleet. At a distance, to be sure, and Nagato seemed to be hanging back to keep an eye on her, so the situation seemed under control. Still, Goto made sure to call the JASDF and the Korean strike squadron on rotation before he went down to the docks to greet his shipgirls, just in case.

An hour later found him standing on the dock, offering words of congratulations, sympathy, and encouragement to the shipgirls slowly streaming in. A slightly shaken Ayanami, a half-wrecked Shokaku... the list went on and on. Finally, though, there was only Nagato approaching the dock, looking... surprisingly cheery. And behind her was-

"Nagato," Goto said very slowly, as if talking to a five-year-old. "Why is the Northern Ocean Princess Abyssal two feet behind you? And why is it still mobile?"

"She, Admiral," Nagato corrected in a too-cheery tone of voice, as if the small Abyssal behind her was a normal occurence. "Anyway, Hime-chan here followed me home. Can I keep her?"

"That answers nothing and yet it answers everything," Goto muttered to himself. "Nagato, Abyssals are not puppies. You can't keep on like a pet just because it followed you home. Hell, it shouldn't be following you in the first place! I can understand you bringing it back for interrogation, but _why is it still conscious?!_ "

"Mou, Admiral, you're in a bad mood today," Nagato said. Behind her, the Abyssal had pulled out a toy Zero from... somewhere, and was playing with it and making little airplane noises.

 _'My God that's adorable.'_

"In any case, Hime-chan here is requesting asylum."

Goto felt something in his mind snap at those words. "What."

"She said that the Abyssals can no longer protect her from, and I quote, 'That American harridan'," Nagato continued, oblivious to Goto's meltdown. "I think she means Iowa. We never did get the full story about that bender she went on..."

"R-Right..." Goto managed to choke out. "You're responsible for her. K-Keep her out of trouble, housing. The works. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wake up now."

Nagato watched, confused, as Goto staggered out of sight, followed shortly by a scream of pain and absolute despair. The battleship sighed.

"The Admiral really needs a vacation," Nagato mused. "Now, let's get you settled in!"

 **AN: *gasp!* Continuity?! In my humor fic?! More likely than you'd think.**


	21. Rule 61

**Rule 61. After the loss of three acres of cherry trees, Kanmusu are no longer allowed to use the petals for an entrance.**

The situation was grim. Somehow, a large force of Abyssals had snuck close enough to shore to launch a surprise attack on Yokosuka Naval Base. Worse, not only had the shipgirl force not finished recovering from the battle not a few days prior, Admiral Goto was still catatonic and Nagato refused to leave the side of the Northern Ocean Princess, or "Hoppo-chan", as the battleship insisted everyone call her.

"Get _off!"_ Hiei shrieked as she tore an I-class destroyer off her face and hurled it to the ground, finishing it off with some six-inch shells to the face. The battleship had no time to savor the victory before her entire battery was turned to the NE-class heavy cruiser charging at her. "Ugh, this is entirely too reminiscent of Friday the Thirteenth."

"THAT BAD, huh?" Kongo replied as she simultaneously punted another destroyer, fired her 5" and 25mm guns at an incoming dive bomber squadron, and let loose salvoes of 14" and 6" at a cruiser squadron looking to take a chunk out of them.

"Speaking of bad situations, where the hell is Kirishima?!" Haruna snapped, her three intact 14" turrets firing as fast as they could load at a nearby TA-class battleship.

"Just got DISCHARGED a few minutes ago!" Kongo answered. "She said she'd be here SOON! And that we'd know EXACTLY when she arrived!"

"Please don't tell me she's going to be late because she's preparing her entrance," Hiei groaned.

 _"Nah, I had to go pick up some additional reinforcements,"_ came the reply over the radio.

Kongo was about to respond when the Abyssal force attacking them parted like the Red Sea, allowing a very unwelcome sight for the battered and exhausted to step forward: an RU-class battleship of the flagship variety.

"Kirishima, whatever you've got in mind, do it fast!" Kongo very calmly said into the comms. "Because we've just run out of breathing room."

Something fluttered onto Haruna's nose, prompting her to swat it off onto the water. "A sakura petal?"

More sakura petals drifted from behind them, and the three battleships whirled around to see Yamato, parasol and rigging at ready, surrounded by a veritable blizzard of sakura petals.

"Kongo, Hiei, Haruna," Yamato said, nodding demurely at each in turn. "Please stand back. I, Yamato, will handle this one."

All three hastily complied as the Abyssal turned its full attention on Yamato, growling. For a moment, the two combatants stood, waiting for the right moment. And then, as the last petal touched the water, the Abyssal charged forward, forgoing its impressive gun armament.

Yamato merely stood, waiting, until the Abyssal was barely five feet away, at which point she opened her parasol right in its face, blinding it. Howling, the Abyssal tore the parasol to shreds, only to feel the cold steel of nine gun barrels poking into its back.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I, Yamato, do not have time to fight you for long." And then the RU-class battleship was sent flying as nine armor-piercing shells the approximate weight of a family sedan smashed into it. It promptly dragged itself up to its feet, growling despite, or perhaps because of, its wounds - only to eat 30 14" shells to the face. That did the trick, the Abyssal slumping into the water, dead.

"Come," Yamato ordered as the spectating Abyssals howled for blood. They were rapidly silenced as Yamato turned her guns against them, the four Kongos traveling in her wake.

"So, uh, where'd you get all those sakura petals?" Haruna asked, occasionally firing at a straggler.

"Oh, well I-"

 _ **"KIRISHIMA!"**_ Admiral Goto howled from somewhere in the base. _**"YOU DENUDED THREE ACRES OF SAKURA TREES?!"**_

Kirishima froze in a rictus grin, slowly looking between her sisters for support.

She found none.


	22. Rule 62

**Rule 62. Any and all swimsuit calendars featuring shipgirls must be taken with the explicit informed consent of the shipgirls involved.**

"So, um, I just wanted to be clear," Yamato said nervously, adjusting the bottom of the bright and dangerously skimpy red string bikini she was wearing. "These pictures aren't going to be released, right? I, Yamato, would not want the public to see these."

"Yeah, yeah, no problem, the prudes that see you as a symbol won't ever know these exist," Aoba said distractedly as she snapped another picture. "Now, we've got the shy, nervous pose down pat, so let's do something a little more risque. Go lie on that bed over there, on your back."

Yamato did so, craning her neck to look into the camera.

"Okay, close. Pull up your knees, and put your hands under your head- yes, like that!" Leaning over the blushing battleship, Aoba began snapping away. Finally, the clicks of the camera stopped, though Yamato held her position as Aoba checked her camera.

"Um... can we call it a day?" Yamato tentatively asked. "I... think that's enough pictures for me."

"Yeah, no problem," Aoba said absent-mindedly. "Feel free to get dressed and leave."

As the battleship walked out the door, Aoba immediately scrambled for her computer and began uploading the pictures to her computer.

"Heheheheheh," she cackled, drooling slightly. "Oh, man, these are gonna sell like hotcakes!"

~o~

A few weeks later, about a week after what had been dubbed "The Battle of Yokosuka", found Kirishima marching down the hall of the destroyer dorm intent on getting back in Goto's good graces. The Admiral was now functional, at least, and the therapy he was undergoing promised improvement, and his first order had been to slap Kirishima with a punishment detail for the cherry blossoms. Not too heavy, the city of Yokosuka hadn't raised much of a fuss, but she had been assigned to do the dorm inspections instead of one of the JGSDF sergeants. For the most part, the dorms had been fine, and the few problems had so far been easily fixable. Her next dorm was the one Shimakaze shared with Fujinami, Naganami, and Hananami, and it was one she was dreading. Shimakaze tended to treat the regulations as... suggestions.

She came to a stop at the door and gave a quick knock, getting a "Come in!" from inside. Kirishima opened the unlocked door and stepped in to find Naganami and Shimakaze locked in an intense battle on their computer, both the picture of intense concentration. Glancing around the room, Kirishima didn't find anything objecitona-

Scratch that, there was a calendar attached to the wall prominently featuring her older sister Kongo in a very risque one-piece. Slowly, shakily, Kirishima reached out and flipped through the pages. Yamato, Atago, Takao, Ashigara, Ooi - even Shimakaze herself! And all in swimsuits of coverage varying from "barely decent" to "three triangles and dental floss".

"Shimakaze..." the fast battleship said slowly. "Why is there a swimsuit calendar on the wall, and why are you featured in it?"

"Oh, that?" Shimakaze answered, not taking her eyes off the game. "I wanted some pictures for my Facebook profile, and one thing led to another and suddenly I'm in a swimsuit talking to Aoba about how a swimsuit calendar would be a great idea. Why?"

"No reason..." she whimpered. "Mind if I borrow it?"

"Yeah, just remember to give it back," Shimakaze answered. "Shit! Stupid zombies!"

Kirishima didn't even notice the swearword, nor Naganami's answering cries. She was too busy trying to figure out how the hell she was going to ask Kongo about this.

~o~

Admiral Goto sighed as he leaned back in his chair, savoring a cup of tea. His therapist had recommended taking these stress-free moments, and he had to admit, it was working. He raised his cup for another sip-

 **"NOOOOOOOOOO-!"** came the dulcet tones of Kongo wailing in English, echoing through the home base. **"I CAN'T GET MARRIED ANYMORE!"**

Not two seconds later came a similar wail from Yamato. **"NOOOOOOO! MY SISTER WILL THINK I-I'M SOME KIND OF WANTON HARLOT!"**

 **"AOBA, BECAUSE OF YOU I'VE SEEN HELL!"** Kitakami added to the cacophony. **"YOU WILL DIE!"**

 **"YOU'RE... GOING TO LOVE ME!"**

 **"LET ME GO, TATSUTA! AOBA NEEDS TO PAY!"  
**  
Tempting though it was, Goto knew he couldn't let his shipgirls kill Aoba. As much as he wanted to.

"Ooyodo," he called out to his secretary ship. "Find Aoba, and get her in front of my desk ASAP."


	23. Rule 64

**64\. We do not consider "Talk Like a Pirate Day" to be an actual holiday.**

 **AN: To all French speakers: if the insults don't make a whole lot of sense, it's because I stole them from the Merovingian's speech in the Matrix.  
**  
Greyhound stretched her arms above her head, arching her back like a cat on the couch she was occupying. The destroyer was joined in the lounge in the Scapa Flow Naval Base by Belfast and Norfolk cuddled up on one of the soft armchairs, Repulse lying curled up in a blanket in front of the fire, a book featuring a bright orange tabby cat on the cover in hand, and Edinburgh silently rocking out to whatever music was blaring through her earbuds. Finishing her stretch, Greyhound turned back to her tablet, currently running Freeman's Mind, and slipped her headphones on.

They didn't help when Indefatigable slammed the doors to the lounge wide open with a loud bang.

"Arr! Avast, ye mateys!" she announced as every shipgirl in the room turned to glare at her.

"Indefatigable... why are you dressed like a pirate?" Belfast slowly asked.

Indeed, Indefatigable looked like the cross-dressing sister of Jack Sparrow, her hair in dreadlocks under the tricorn hat and bandanna and a metal hook on her right hand. A parrot was perched on her shoulder, and somehow she had managed to attach a disturbingly lifelike fake mustache to her upper lips.

"Don't ye know? It be Talk Like a Pirate Day! Arr!"

"*Grawk!* Bordel de merde!" the parrot squawked, prompting everyone in the room to jump.

"I am 95% percent sure that parrot just insulted me. In French," Repulse deadpanned.

"Aye, it be great! The only speech the parrot be capable of is insults in French!" Indefatigable beamed, as if proud of herself for finding such a specimen.

The reaction from her fellow shipgirls was... underwhelming, to say the least. All five glanced at each other before shrugging and turning back to their prior activities.

"Hey!" Indefatigable snapped, breaking her character in frustration. "Where's your holiday spirit?" Unnoticed by her, the parrot turned around, looking at something in the hall.

"You do realize this isn't an actual holiday, right?" Belfast stated. "Because I'm pretty sure you have a mission in... five minutes?"

"Bah!" Indefatigable huffed. "I be a pirate! I be free to whatever strikes me fancy on the high seas!"

"*Bwak!* Conard d'enculé de ta mere!"

"What did you say about my mother?!"

The room erupted into snickers as Indefatigable froze, turning her head to see Dunkerque glaring daggers at her parrot. Getting nothing but more squawks, the pissed-off battleship turned her gaze on Indefatigable.

"Apologize for ze parrot!" she demanded in very heavily accented English. "Or I shall break you both!"

For a moment, it looked like Indefatigable would comply, before a shit-eating grin stole across her face. The shipgirls in the lounge all leaned across their furniture, trying to get a better look at the impending hilarity.

"Arr! It be a scurvy Frog! And Navy, to boot! Have at ye!"

And then Indefatigable did the unexpected and bolted the other way, the parrot choosing that moment to send another volley of insults at Dunkerque, who for her part was responding in kind.

The five shipgirls all glanced at each other.

"Should we follow them?" Norfolk asked.

"Oh, hell yes!" Edinburgh exclaimed. "This is gonna be hilarious!"


	24. Rule 66

**Rule 66. It is now official policy that all pets for shipgirls must be authorized by both their commanding admiral, the base admiral, and the base secretary ship.**

 **AN: I have a cover image now.**

Scheer gave a massive yawn, stretching her arms above her head, only to grimace as the action pulled against sore muscles. After a few months on Indian Ocean patrol, all she wanted to do was sleep for a day or seven. No, not seven. She needed a hot bath or two, plus the tender ministration of Jervis Bay's _exquisite_ hands.

As Scheer was enveloped in a pleasant fantasy of her girlfriend rubbing down every sore spot on her body, she walked up to the door to the dorm she shared with Graf Spee and Lutzow. Not that the sisters were ever together for very long, but it was always nice to catch up. Unfortunately, so wrapped in her fantasy was Scheer that she didn't notice the growling, scratching, and coos of delight coming from their room.

Until she opened the door and twenty pounds of black-furred teeth and claws pounced on the armored cruiser, knocking her flat on her ass and trying to eat her face off.

As Scheer wrestled with the honey badger, she dimly heard Lutzow trying to scold it. Finally, the pissed-off animal was pried off her face and placated with a small jar of honey, and the two sisters parked themselves on their beds, Scheer silently glad for the 150mm of armor plate that had covered her conning tower as a ship.

"So, Lutzow," she began conversationally. "Why the hell do you have a honey badger in our room?"

"You mean Winnie?" Lutzow confirmed innocently. "I picked him up on my way back from my last Indian Ocean patrol while I was in South Africa refueling. Isn't he just the cutest?"

Scheer leaned back slightly as Lutzow's face descended into the kind of oh-he's-too-cute-for-words madness that was usually reserved for babies, kittens, puppies, and baby hippos.

"Right, sure," the armored cruiser replied. "Are you sure you want to keep a honey badger as a pet?"

"Oh, don't worry! They're pretty solitary creatures, and their meat diet is pretty easy to plan!"

"That's not what I meant..." Suddenly, Scheer became very aware that she had left the door open, that "Winnie" was not tied up to, well, anything, and that she couldn't see the little blighter.  
"Lutzow, have you told Admiral Hartmann about your new pet?"

"Uh, no. Why?"

There was a blood-curdling shriek from down the hall, followed shortly by a series of loud crashes.

"Because you've just lost any chance at breaking the news to him gently."


	25. Rule 67

**Rule 67. Contrary to popular belief, Mississippi does not have a "rocket punch".**

Fuso was relaxing in the guest dorms of San Diego Naval Base watching Ben 10 reruns when Yamashiro stumbled in, holding her hand to her cheek. The other battleship was immediately out of her seat and fussing over her sister.

"Yamashiro! What happened?! Did you get in a fight?" Fuso fussed as she looked over her sister for any other damage. Thankfully, the bruise on her cheek was the only injury.

"N-no. Well, kinda," Yamashiro hedged. "I... might have disparaged Oklahoma in hearing range of some American battleships. Mississippi took offense and fired her rocket punch at me."

Fuso's heretofore tender ministrations vanished instantly. Yamashiro glanced at her sister's face to see an expression of exasperation and mild disgust. "Okay, fine, don't tell me who hit you. I can take a hint." And with that, Fuso turned around and flopped back on the couch.

"What?" Yamashiro said, thoroughly confused. "But I'm telling the truth! That's what actually happened!"

"Yeah, sure," Fuso scoffed. "Let me know when you actually want to talk about this."

~o~

Yamashiro took in her targets, the American battleships Idaho and New Mexico, happily chattering away to two of her brethren. Yamashiro would have gone up and done what she needed to do regardless, but the other two battleships were California and Pennsylvania. Two of the ships that had sunk her. She shuddered at the memory. At least West Virginia and Tennessee weren't there. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from behind the corner and approached the American battlewagons.

"Oh, hey Yamashiro!" Idaho called out as Yamashiro approached. "What's up?"

"Uh, hello, Idaho-san."

"Hey, none of that 'san' crap! We're friends, aren't we?"

It was to her great surprise that Yamashiro realized that that was true. Idaho had always been warm and friendly to her, so much so that she actually felt safe around her. Something she never felt around the other American battleships. Her courage bolstered, she asked the question she needed an answer for.

"Do you know that Mississippi has a rocket punch?"

For a moment, there was just silence as all four American battleships just _stared_ at her. Yamashiro had just begun to fidget nervously when Idaho and California both burst into raucous laughter.

"Bahahahahahahahahahahaha!" Idaho's laughter slowly subsided as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Heh, thanks, that was a good one, Yamashiro."

"But-But that wasn't a joke!" she protested. "She really does have a rocket punch! She hit me with it!"

"Like, I know it was a good joke, but you don't need to keep it up," California interjected.

"But- I- Aaaaah!" Yamashiro cried as she bolted in the other direction, tears streaming down her face.

"I think you broke her," Pennsylvania deadpanned.

~o~

"A rocket punch? Really?" Akashi sighed. "Yamashiro, you've been watching too much Mazinger Z."

~o~

"No, I don't have a rocket punch," Unryu drawled. "The rockets are for AA. Besides, that sounds really impractical."

~o~

"Rocket punch?" Intrepid said through a mouthful of mochi. "Oh, yeah, Gyatt has one, too. So does Boston. I don't know about Mississippi, though..."

"She does," Salem confirmed. "She was used as a test ship for the Terrier missile, that's how she got it." The heavy cruiser shot a frazzled, half-asleep Yamashiro a sympathetic look. "You've been running around trying to prove that for a long time, haven't you."

"Uh-huh..." Yamashiro mumbled. Why were her eyelids so heavy.

"Go get some sleep," Salem said, lightly shoving Yamashiro towards the dorms. "You've solved the mystery."

"Do you really think we should've lied to her like that?" Intrepid asked as Yamashiro stumbled away.

"You saw her, she wouldn't have slept if we didn't," Salem replied. "Though I wonder how she got that notion in her head in the first place..."


	26. Rule 73

**Rule 73. Iowa is to remove the wooden plaques with... certain names immediately.**

Musashi was walking down one of the halls of the Kure Naval Base when she felt something loop around her head.

"Hey, what the-" Musashi exclaimed as she turned around to see Iowa standing behind her with a measuring tape. "What... are you doing?"

"I'm measuring your head," Iowa answered absentmindedly. "11 1/4 inches. Guess I shouldn't be fucking surprised you've got the biggest head I've measured."

Musashi tilted her head as she stared, dumbfounded, at the American battleship. "That answer clarified nothing."

"Eh, it's for a personal project. No big deal," Iowa said, waving off Musashi's confusion as she started away down the hall.

"Oh no you don't," Musashi retorted as she started after the American. "I want answers. Especially since Vanguard and Bismarck both mentioned that you measured their heads before you got kicked out of the Atlantic fleet."

Iowa flinched at the last sentence. "The one fucking Japanese battleship to have a fucking tolerance for alcohol," she muttered under her breath. Iowa mentally weighed the pros and cons of showing Musashi her... collection. "Eh, fuck it. Maybe she'll be impressed."

Turning back to Musashi, she said, "Well, if you want answers, follow me. I wanna show you something."

The two proceeded in silence until they arrived at Iowa's temporary dorm at Kure. Despite the fact that most of her belongings were still packed away in cardboard boxes, Iowa had already left her mark. Despite the sizeable alcohol cabinet and prominent ashtray, the room was very tidy. Or rather, the mess was confined to a two-foot strip around the bed. Iowa, for her part, dropped the tape measure on her bed and pulled a box out from under her bed and began rooting through it.

"Where is... aha!" Iowa crowed in triumph as she pulled a wooden plaque out of the box, of the variety usually hung up on walls to display hunting trophies. "Here, this should tell you all you need to fucking know."

Musashi took the plaque without a word, and gave it a look-over. Aside from the small bronze label on the bottom, the plaque was bare, waiting for something to be attached to it. A bloodthirsty grin worked its way onto her face as she read the label at the bottom: Vanguard, UK.

"I see what this is," Musashi smirked. "That confident you can take me, huh?"

Iowa fired back a smirk of her own over her shoulder sat on her bed. "Oh, you know it, bitch. I haven't put together your plaque yet, but now that I got your head measurements I should have one by tomorrow."

Musashi chuckled as she tossed the plaque back to Iowa. "Well, you're confident. I like that. Though, kind of a waste to have these gathering dust, y'know? Maybe you should hang them outside your room or something, put everyone on notice."

Iowa's grin widened to Cheshire-like proportions. "Oh, I like how you fucking think, Musashi. Tell ya what, I'll do that, and when I start my headhunting, you get to be last."

"I look forward to it." And with that, Musashi left.

Iowa held the grin for only a moment longer before exhaling explosively and slumping on her bed. "Jesus Christ it's a good thing I controlled that," she breathed. Reaching into the box, she pulled out one last plaque. This one read "Yamato, Jp" on the bottom. "I'm not sure I could fucking take her if she was all fired up to protect that fucking sister of hers." Taking a calming breath, she retrieved a hammer and some nails from the toolbox she kept in her closet. "Well, time to get to fucking work."

~o~

Fuso and Yamashiro stared at the plaques adorning the wall, the names below a veritable who's who of prominent battleship girls. Bismarck. Nagato. Vanguard. Warspite. The Battleship Princess. It was a long list.

"Should I be insulted or relieved that we're not named here?" Fuso wondered aloud.

"I vote relieved," Yamashiro stated.


	27. Rule 75

**Rule 75. Musashi is advised to take better care to avoid, ahem, "spilling out" during combat. While a great distraction, it's a distraction for** ** _both_** **sides, and has led to many, entirely avoidable, non-combat injuries.**

Musashi fired off another salvo at one of the Ta-class battleships she was fighting, and growled when the shells missed just meters behind. The two Ta-class battleships, accompanied by a quartet of I-class destroyers, had penetrated the Inland Sea and attacked the Kure Naval Base while the rest of the shipgirls normally assigned there were off on another mission. That had left just Musashi, the newly-summoned Sakawa, the recently-repaired Kumano and Suzuya, and some off-duty destroyers to fend them off. Luckily, the Abyssal destroyers had been quickly destroyed, freeing up their small force to concentrate on the battleships. Musashi had planned to quickly take down her opponent and go help the cruisers, but the damn thing just wouldn't. Stay. Still.

Growling, she fired off another salvo - and her eyes widened as she realized the Ta-class battleship had done the same. Only she wasn't evading like crazy like the Abyssal was. Musashi frantically turned her body sideways and leaned away from the very tight grouping, tight enough that it sailed barely an inch in front of her chest and sent sprays of water up behind her.

"Ha! You'll have to try better than that!" Musashi taunted. The Abyssal growled in response, but suddenly cut off the vocalization, her eyes widening and - was that a blush? Could Abyssals even blush?

Simultaneously, Musashi felt the bandages that made up her sarashi... flutter. Which they weren't supposed to do. Not to mention the breeze on her-

She glanced down at her now completely unrestrained breasts. "Oh come on!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air, the motion causing... interesting movements. "Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to redo those bindings?!"

The Abyssal said nothing, merely making the sound of a punctured tire as a stream of blood trickled down her nose. Musashi was dimly aware that the sounds of battle had stopped entirely. The battleship was too pissed off to care.

"Take this!" she shouted, firing a salvo at the Abyssal. This time the all nine shells struck the Abyssal dead on to devastating effect, leaving the battleship bleeding from multiple wounds and swaying drunkenly on her feet. A follow-up salvo finished it off.

Grumbling, Musashi turned to the other half of the battle to see Suzuya fire a few torpedoes into the prone, insensate form of the other Ta-class battleship. And around her was the prone, insensate form of Kumano.

 _'Wait, what? When did that happen?'  
_  
"Hey, Musashi!" Sakawa called out, steaming up to the Japanese battleship. "Thanks for the assist! When your breasts came out, the Abyssal suddenly got this massive nosebleed and collapsed! Though, Kumano did too..." Sakawa trailed off, staring at Musashi's massive... fuel tanks. "Y'know, up close, I can see why. They're kinda magnificent."

"R-Right..." Musashi muttered, feeling suddenly self-conscious about her state of dress. "What about the destroyers?"

"Eh, you're fine there," Sakawa answered airily. "Milk consumption's gonna go up for a month, that's it."

Musashi heaved a sigh of relief. At least she wasn't corrupting any of the destroyers. And then she noticed the glare Suzuya was giving her as she slung her sister over her shoulder. She heaved another sigh, this one more melancholy. That was going to be an unpleasant conver-

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, MUSASHI, COVER UP ALREADY!" Suzuya snapped.


	28. Rule 77

**Rule 77. Video games will be screened for approval first before introduction to the shipgirls. We don't want another incident involving destroyers huddling in a single room during lights out after their exposure to cutesy looking horror games.**

Admiral Goto let out a sigh as he took in the shipgirls seated around the conference table. Nagara, Noshiro, Nachi, Haruna, Shokaku, and Takao had all cornered him shortly after lunch, saying they needed to talk to him, and urgently.

"So, what's the problem, exactly?" he said. All six ships glanced at each other before Noshiro spoke up.

"Um, Admiral, we need to have better controls on video game access."

Goto groaned and let his head thump against his desk. "Let me guess," he muttered from his prone position. "Yuudachi has spread the madness of World of Warships."

"Not exactly..." Nagara hedged. "Though Yuudachi is still really hard to pry off the computer."

"Look, Admiral," Nachi cut in. "It'll probably be easier to share the incidents that forced our hand. Noshiro, if you want to start?"

~o~

 _Quiet hours had just begun for the Yokosuka destroyer dorm, and as usual a light cruiser was patrolling the corridors to make sure the rambunctious girls were following the rules. Most of the rooms were quiet, the girls within getting ready for bed. But as Noshiro reached the tail end of her patrol, she noticed Desdiv 31's door slightly ajar, noises coming out from it._

 _Frowning, Noshiro walked up to the room and flung the room open to find it dark, lit only by a computer screen, with a game running on it: Five Nights at-_

~o~

"They were playing Five Night's at Freddy's?" Goto breathed in numb horror.

"No, thank God," Noshiro hastily replied, shuddering. "Not that what they found was much better. They found Five Nights at Treasure Island. I found them huddled under Okinami's covers, swearing off Mickey Mouse forever."

"Could be worse..." Goto muttered. "Really don't want to consider what would be worse, though. Anyway, who's next?"

Haruna and Nachi glanced between each other. "Remember when Ashigara tried to approach Captain Kobayakawa?" Nachi said.

Goto shuddered again. "Yes. He's still on psychological leave, I believe. Why?"

"Well..." Nachi trailed off. "She... might have gotten her ideas from a dating sim. Or twelve."

"And she _might_ have gotten them from Kongo," Haruna added.

Oh, hey, the numb horror was back. "Why...?"

"Apparently, Kongo didn't think even Ashigara would be desperate enough to try the techniques," Kirishima sighed.

"Could be worse," Nachi added. "Kongo owns Yandere Simulator."

"I... I don't even want to think about it? Shokaku?"

"Um, w-well, sis discovered Korean MMOs..."

~o~

 _Shokaku yawned widely as she slowly returned to wakefulness. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she noticed Zuikaku still on their computer, feverishly tapping and clicking away._

 _"Sis?" Shokaku muttered sleepily. "Did you get up early to play that game?"_

 _Zuikaku turned slightly towards Shokaku, who flinched at her bloodshot eyes and the orange crust around her lips. "Nah, stayed up all night. Worth it, though. I'm about two hours from hitting level 120."_

'Didn't she start the night at level 112?' _Shokaku wondered. Slowly, she began to edge towards the door. She needed help if she was going to get Zuikaku to beat this addiction._

~o~

"Aren't those the ones that require obscene amounts of grinding?" Takao pointed out.

"Yes..." came the muffled answer from Goto. "Okay, Takao, what did your sister find?"

"Well, I have a recording..."

~o~

 _Attempt #1_

 _Alright, finally downloaded the thing, also looked over the instructions. Honestly, it doesn't look that hard, I'll pick a harder map and show those pansies on the forum how a_ real _gamer plays this._

 _Okay, first things first, choose supplies. And now time to get buil- WHERE DID THAT LAVA COME FROM?!_

 _Attempt #2_

 _Okay, new map, colder climate. No lava, hopefully. I just need to dig- SWIM, YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A SAPIENT CREATURE! SWIM!_

 _Attempt #3_

 _OKAY, WHERE DID THE CATS COME FROM, HOW DID THEY FIT THREE MILLION INTO A CAGE THE SIZE OF A FRIDGE, AND WHY DO THEY HAVE THE SAME EFFECTS AS AN 18" HE SHELL?! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!_

 _Attempt #4_

 _[UNINTELLIGIBLE SOUNDS OF INTENSE RAGE]_

 _Attempt #5_

 _HOW DO THESE CREATURES EXIST?! WHY IS THERE NO OPTION TO EXECUTE MILITARY COMMANDERS?! WHY ARE MY SOLDIERS SO FUCKING_ INCOMPETENT?! _WHA- WHY ARE THEY_ EATING FOOD _WHILE THEY'RE GETTING SHREDDED BY A_ SENTIENT COMBINE HARVESTER?! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!

 _Attempt #6_

 _Okay. I finally got a fortress up and running, though that bug where they ignore being on fire is really disturbing. Should probably send a note to the developer- No! I already got you alcohol! You don't need more! YOU ARE NOT THIRSTY!_ **GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!**

~o~

"Huh," Haruna noted. "That's the game Kirishima was playing before she chucked her computer out the window."

"Yeah, Chokai did that too," Takao confirmed. "So, yeah, we need a couple new computers, too."

The only answer from Admiral Goto was the quiet sound of sobbing.

 **AN: Credit to DalekIx for inspiring the Dwarf Fortress segment with his fic A Hero.**


	29. Rule 78

**Rule 78. Stop telling stories about other shipgirls like they were horror stories in order to make the destroyers go to bed. The majority of the Japanese Carriers are unable to rest after hearing the Gray Ghost story.**

Nicolosa da Recco, a destroyer shipgirl of the Italian Navy, was at her wit's end. She and her sisters of the Navigatori class had been assigned to lead destroyers, a practice borrowed from the Japanese when it was found out just how useful having an authority figure for the destroyers was. As a result, she had been assigned to a squadron consisting of the four Freccia-class destroyers: Freccia, Dardo, Saetta, and Strale. And, like most kids, they stubbornly refused to go to bed on time!

"Alright!" she finally snapped after all prior attempts had failed. "If I tell you guys a story, will you go to sleep?"

The four destroyers glanced at each other, coming to a consensus. "Sure!" Freccia answered for them. "But it better be a good story!"

 _'Oh thank God.'_ "Great! But first, I need you to change into your PJs and brush your teeth, okay?"

The destroyers immediately scrambled to do so, showing an enthusiasm previously unseen. Within ten minutes all four were sitting upright in bed, eagerly awaiting the story Nicolosa had. The older destroyer, for her part, was only marginally less eager.

"Alright, this is the story of the Grand Old Lady, who fought two wars and gobbled up many naughty destroyers..."

~o~

The next morning, heavy cruisers Zara and Fiume were eating breakfast when they noticed the Freccia sisters walking up to them.

"Hey, girls!" Zara called out to them. "What's up?"

The destroyers glanced at each other, before Freccia stepped forward. "Hey, Zara, Fiume. Is it true you fought the Grand Old Lady?"

Whatever reaction the destroyers were expecting, it was not for both ships to shriek at the top of their lungs and dive under the table.

"What the heck?!" Dardo exclaimed, bewildered.

"Are they... saying something?" Saetta added.

"Hey, they are!" Freccia realized. "What are they saying?"

The destroyer leaned towards the table - and frowned as she heard it. "Can see in the dark... can't see through metal... can see in the dark... can't see through metal..."

"Wow," Freccia said as she stepped back. "Nicolosa was telling the truth! The Grand Old Lady really does exist!" Her face paled as she came to a realization. "Heheh, we should probably go to bed when she says, otherwise the Grand Old Lady might visit us."

Her sisters nodded eagerly at that decision.

Across the room, Vittorio Veneto groaned and rested her head in her hands. "Aw, geez, Warspite's gonna flip when she hears this."

 **AN: Sorry, no Grey Ghost. Someone in the Greatest Generation threads did it far better than I could. Have some Warspite instead!**


	30. Rule 83

**Rule 83. You cannot upgrade yourself from a destroyer to a battleship by defeating a battleship. Stop telling the destroyer girls this.**

Bretagne crept down the corridors of the main naval base at Toulon, being careful to keep her back to the wall. Reaching a corner, she canned the intersection from all directions. Only once she was sure it was clear of marauding destroyers did she scurry across the intersection to the next section of hallway.

 _'How did it come to this?'_ she lamented in her head. _'Battleships skulking around their homes where they should be safe!'_

It had all started a week ago when a half-dozen destroyers of the Marine Nationale had tried to jump Richelieu in the bath. Only the destroyers tripping over each other and the fortuitous arrival of Jean Bart had avoided a disaster. Questioning thereafter had revealed that they believed that by defeating a battleship in combat, they could become one themselves.

It was probably not a coincidence that all the destroyers in question were very eager to "grow up", if you know what I mean.

After that, the attacks had unpredictable but constant. And all indications were that the rest of the world's navies were having the same problem. Something had to be done, and soon, before one of the battleships involved snapped.

Bretagne groaned as she came to another intersection. Once again, the process was repeated, and once again she scurried through. Except this time, a heavy weight landed on her back.

 _'I didn't look up...'_ Bretagne lamented as she tried to buck her opponent off.

"Gotcha!" Tempete crowed as she held onto Bretagne's head. "Two knees down and I'll be a battleship!"

"Oh, no you don't you little rat!" Bretagne snapped, before lunging backwards at a wall. Tempete let out a whoosh of breath as she was squashed between a sturdy concrete wall and 20,000 tons of irate battleship, her grip on Bretagne loosening enough for the follow-up spin to fling the destroyer off of Bretagne.

"Gurf!" Tempete grunted as she hit the concrete floor. "Ha! You'll have to do better than that to-"

The destroyer froze in a squat as she stared down the barrels of a half dozen of Bretagne's 138mm secondary guns. As well as the smoking barrels of one of her twin 34cm turrets, a massive hole in the wall just above her head.

"You got your rigging?" Tempete gulped audibly. "W-Wow, that's good thinking. Please don't shoot me."

"Okay..." Bretagne bit out. "We are going to go to the Admiral, without fighting each other, and we are going to _set the goddamn record straight on this_. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am!"

~o~

"So, we're clear here, right?" Admiral Goto said, looking each and every destroyer in front of him in the eye. "Defeating a battleship in combat will not make you a battleship."

"Clear," the shipgirls chorused dully. After the entire Shiratsuyu class had been hospitalized by Hoppo-chan going after Nagato, no one really had the enthusiasm for the entire ordeal anymore.

"Good," Goto nodded. "Anyway, I contacted Admiral Holloway, and he said Heermann should be over in a few days. In the meantime, we're just going to have to live with Kongo in the ventilation system."

"Um, I don't wanna be rude," Shigure piped up. "But that's gonna be a serious inconvenience. Is there any way that can happen faster?"

"Well, sure," Goto replied a little too casually. "You can go get her yourself. Are you volunteering?"

Shigure froze as she recalled the last person to try. Key word being "try". "Nope! Nopenopenopenopenope so much nope!"

~o~

 **Omake: Other Reactions**

 **AN: Credit to Sheo Darren on SB for this part.**

 **Kure, Hiroshima**

"Kiyoshimo?!" gasped Yuugumo as her youngest sister dove in front of her, taking the blow for the startled Musashi.

"I'm sorry, Yuugumo-neesan... I cannot let you defeat Musashi-san..."

"But this is your chance to become a battleship," Makigumo argued, rushing up to the downed destroyer's side.

"Battleships are the best... I want to be a battleship... but to become a battleship, I have to defeat a battleship.."

"Uh, Kiyoshimo," Musashi cut in, a worried tone in her voice. "Are you all right?"

"I want to be a battleship but I don't want to be a battleship if it means defeating a battleship... aaahhhh!" Kiyoshimo wailed.

 **has crashed. Please restart your computer.**

~o~

 **Pearl Harbor, Oahu**

"Samuel B. Roberts!" Iowa snapped as she frantically tried to shake off the insane destroyer escort latched on her back like a limpet. "Unhand me right the fuck now!"

"You can do it, Willie!" Sammy called out, finishing the process of trapping the taller ship girl in her secret technique: FULL NELSON. "Finish her!"

"Nooo!"

Hapless as always, William D. Porter ended up accidentally torpedoing Arizona. Admiral Holloway was not pleased.

~o~

 **Rota, Cadiz**

It was a momentous scene. Three dreadnoughts, once divided by tragedy, now stood back to back, holding their numerous foes at bay.

"This brings me back," chuckled España as she fended off an overeager attacker. "To the Rif War."

"The last time we three worked together," recalled Alfonso XIII, who had taken their eldest sister's name after the former was lost to an accident.

"Good times," agreed Jaime I, who despite her Republican leanings had found common ground with her Nationalist rival.

For blood flowed thicker than water or oil.

"Then, together?" the lead ship of the _España_ class proposed.

"Together," her younger sisters agreed.

The destroyers of the Spanish Navy, united by one dark desire, bunched up for one final charge at the three battleships.

"ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!"


	31. Rule 84

**Rule 84. We shouldn't need to say this, but all shipgirls are now forbidden from kidnapping "boyfriends".**

"Ashigara?" Nachi groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Who is that, and why is he tied to your chair?"

The "who" in question was a chocolate-skinned young man wearing jeans, a grey t-shirt, and a white bandanna around his head. He was also rather tall and very well-muscled. Were she to just meet him in the street Nachi was sure she would find him positively scrumptious, but she had more important things to worry about.

"This is my new boyfriend!" Ashigara announced cheerfully, grabbing the man's head up in a hug and pressing her breasts against his cheek in the process.

"Name's Truxtun Cross," the man answered for Ashigara in passable Japanese. "Crazy lady here kidnapped me before I could visit my girlfriend. And honestly, despite how nice this is, Louisiana's probably frantic right now wondering where I am, so I'd really like to be able to go find her. "

Nachi paled at the name Truxtun had just given. "Ashigara... please tell me this isn't true."

"Hmph!" Ashigara scoffed, still hugging Truxtun's head. "She failed to keep him from me, so he's mine now!"

"Ashigara..." Nachi breathed. "You do remember the Hartmann Incident, right?"

"Wasn't that when Ramillies kidnapped Klaus Hartmann, Bismarck's then-boyfriend, causing Bismarck to wreck half the Royal Navy as she went all Liam Neeson on their asses trying to find him?" Truxtun volunteered, now grinning widely. "Because I guarantee you, Louisiana would totally do that."

"Hmph!" Ashigara scoffed again, though an astute observer would note that she was shaking slightly. "She's across the ocean! I have plenty of time to spend with my sweet snookums!"

"See, it's shit like that that makes you unable to keep a boyfriend," Truxtun supplied helpfully.

Nachi frowned. Something about that statement seemed off... Still, time it took Louisiana to get here was time she could use to try and persuade Ashigara. "Look, she's gonna get here sometime, and then you'll be in a world of hurt. I've seen her stats; if they're anything close to accurate she could take _Yamato_ best out of three."

"I'm not listening to you, enemy of love!"

"You'd better listen, you love-struck-!"

"Uh, I do believe you two are forgetting something," Truxtun cut in again. "I was visiting her in _Yokosuka_. _"_

Both heavy cruisers froze, followed shortly by the sound of splintering concrete. Nachi and Ashigara both scrambled to the window to find the massive form of Louisiana tearing apart the battleship dorm, Nagato, Hoppo-chan, Mutsu, Kirishima, and Haruna trying to stop her. Key word being "try".

"Ashigara," Nachi said very slowly as Louisiana grabbed Kirishima by the leg and start beating Mutsu on the head with her. " _Return her goddamn boyfriend before she gets to the cruiser dorm._ "


	32. Rule 85

**Rule 85. Despite the flattering rumor, Admiral Briggs does not "bang a dozen shipgirls every morning".**

Norfolk, in comparison to San Diego, was a much more relaxed place. This was a consequence of the US Navy's Atlantic Shipgirl Fleet being focused more on ASW, working with the Royal Navy, Kriegsmarine, and Royal Canadian Navy to keep the North Atlantic as Abyssal-free as they could. Abyssal surface combatants were relatively rare, being mostly concentrated around the British Isles, allowing the USN to get away with a minimal heavy surface presence in the Atlantic.

Of course, this relaxed atmosphere sometimes led to... issues.

"So, who do you think is in Admiral Briggs' harem?" Baker whispered conspiratorially over a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs.

"Well, there have to be at least a dozen," Riddle whispered back. "I mean, I heard from Finch who heard it from Natoma Bay who heard it from Huron that Admiral Briggs bangs a dozen shipgirls every day."

The two destroyer escorts paused as they considered that phrase.

"So, what does "bang" mean in this context, anyway?" Riddle wondered aloud, causing a passing Casablanca to nearly sprawl forward in shock.

"Eh, we can ask Nassau on our ASW patrol later," Baker shrugged. "For now, brainstorming!"

"Okay, Admiral Briggs definitely has the best, toughest shipgirls in the Atlantic Fleet. No less for Admiral Briggs!" Riddle decided, puffing her chest up with pride. "So, we can definitely count Texas and New York. As Ravager said when she thought we weren't listening, "sisters are better"!"

"Wasp, too," Baker decided. "She did all sorts of cool stuff, like those Malta runs."

"Oh! And Augusta ferried the President around!"

"Oh, definitely. Oh, and White Plains, too!"

"Yeah, she blew up a heavy cruiser!"

"Guadalcanal captured a U-boat!"

"England sank the most submarines!"

"The Grand Old Ladies, Brooklyn and Philadelphia!"

"Arkansas, too!"

The two destroyer escorts hummed in thought for a few more seconds.

"Well, I'm coming up blank," Riddle admitted.

"Yeah, me too," Baker agreed. "And we're still missing, uh..." Baker trailed off as she counted on her fingers. "Two more! Hey, maybe we can join Admiral Briggs' harem!"

"NO!" came the shout from the sizable audience surrounding them. Both girls jumped slightly, not having noticed the crowd around them.

"Okay," a red-faced Cincinnati said as she hauled the two protesting destroyer escorts out of their seats. "We're going to go see Admiral Briggs to go clear some things up."

~o~

Admiral Briggs chuckled as he heard the story from a still red-faced Cincinnati and the two rebellious destroyer escorts. "Well, while both amusing and flattering, I assure you that those rumors are not true." He stroked his beard in thought, before coming to a conclusion. "I heard from Casablanca that you two wanted to know what "banging" is. Do you want me to tell you?"

Riddle and Baker glanced between each other, not noticing Cincinnati frantically shaking her head behind them. "Sure! We wanna know!"

He told them.

"EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW!" Baker shrieked, her eyes shut tight and her hands over her ears.

"We definitely don't want to be in your harem!" Riddle cried. "Not if we-we gotta do _that!_ "

"I told you, I don't have a harem," Briggs said, though without any heat. "Anyway, let this be a lesson in not believing everything you hear. Dismissed."

The two destroyer escorts took the offer and ran with it, literally, leaving behind a chuckling Briggs and Cincinnati, who was shaking her head in exasperation.

"You're terrible, corrupting young girls like that," she groaned.

"Really. What, would you want them to google it or something?"

Cincinnati thought of two naive destroyer escorts searching "banging" on the internet. "Thanks, Admiral. I think I need to go wash my brain in acid now," she spat as she got up and began stalking out the room.

"You're welcome!" Briggs called after her, getting only a slammed door in response.


	33. Rule 86

**Rule 86. A reminder that pranks are not tolerated, even if they're funny.**

"Jesus Christ I'm bored," Johnston announced in a monotone as she laid upside down on the couch in the dorm room she shared with her sisters Heermann and Hoel.

"Hn," Heermann grunted distractedly as she continued doing... something on her iPad.

Flipping around and onto the couch, Johnston poked her head above the armrest and glared at her sister. "Y'know, normally when your sister says they're bored that means you should _do something about it_."

"Look, Johnston," Heermann replied as she put down her tablet. "Unless you know where to get a 2 1/2 by 6 foot poster of Willie D. within the next three hours, then I really can't think of anything that'll help besides suggest you go back to playing video games. Y'know, like you usually do. Plus, I'm still on house arrest for that rumor from last week."

"Heheheh," Johnston chuckled as she remembered the chaos that had swept the base. "That was hilarious, seeing Sammy B. clinging to Iowa's face like that." She paused in thought, looking straight at her sister. "You were planning to prank Iowa, weren't you. Put that poster above her bed or something."

"Yup," Heermann confirmed. "Except I couldn't figure out how to get the poster printed."

"Well, shit sister," Johnston replied with a grin. "If that's all that was tripping you up, you should've come to me sooner."

"Wait, you mean-"

Rummaging under her bed, Johnston pulled out and unrolled a large poster of William D. Porter, making a very adorable "rar!" pose.

"That's... perfect..." Heermann breathed. "Johnston, how'd you get that?"

"Well, you remember when I was trying to help Sammy B. help Willie with her confidence issues?" Heermann nodded an affirmative. "Well, one of the things we did was practice poses. A few phone pictures and a trip to the nearest Kinko's, and bam! Poster. What I wanna know is how we're going to get into Iowa's room to do this."

"You leave that to me, dear sister."

The two destroyers grinned evil grins at each other, each barely suppressing diabolical laughter.

~o~

Iowa hummed a tuneless hum as she entered her dorm room, wiping down her hair with a towel as she went. Throwing the towel into her hamper, Iowa stripped off the t-shirt and sweatpants she'd been wearing, put on a tank top and shorts, and climbed into bed. Lying on her back, she prepared to spend a few minutes contemplating the ceiling, as she usually did before going to sleep, only to freeze in place.

Her eyes widened and her hands gripped her sheets like Kearsarge's crane as she beheld the form of her greatest nemesis, ready to pounce on her. The paralysis lasted only a few seconds before she reacted.

"YEAGH!" she shouted - not screamed - as she rolled off the bed, hooked her hand under the frame, and _hurled_ the bed straight up into the ceiling. There was a crunch and the sound of splintering wood, before the bed came crashing down to the floor again. Slowly, cautiously, Iowa peeked up, and breathed a sigh of both relief and aggravation as she saw that it was just a - now rather battered - poster.

"Swear to fucking god, I'm gonna find whoever fucking did this and plant my foot so far up their fucking ass they'll be choking on fucking _shoe leather_ ," Iowa grumbled as she climbed back into bed, brushing dust off the comforter. The battleship had barely gotten settled again when there was an ominous creaking above her. She glanced up to see a massive crack developing in the ceiling.

"Aw, fuck," was the only thing she had time to say before the ceiling collapsed on her, dumping chunks of wood, concrete, and a bed containing Alabama on top of her.

"What in tarnation-!" Alabama exclaimed once she got over her shock. "Iowa! What the blazes are ya doin'?" When no answer was forthcoming, she glanced over the side to find only Iowa's arm visible, twitching every few seconds.

"Uh, shoot. Hang on, Iowa, I'm goin' to get help!"

~o~

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Heermann and Johnston roared as they watched the feed from the video camera they had planted. "Heh... WOHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"I've got tears in my eyes," Johnston said as the gales started to subside.

"Oh, man, I was expecting a good reaction but this is way better than I expected!" Heermann added. "Oh, man, we gotta do this again! Who should we prank ne-"

Heermann was cut off by the light to the room clicking on, their third sister Hoel glaring reproachfully at them from the door.

"H-Hoel!" Johnston stammered. "W-Weren't you in the infirmary?"

"They let me out a day early," Hoel answered. "Honestly, you two! That was just mean!"

"H-Hoel..." Heermann stammered. "P-Please, be reasonable. W-We can talk this out! You don't need to tell anyone!"

The clicking of touchscreen keys cut through the bargaining as Hoel typed in a text message. "Too late," she said sweetly.


	34. Rule 87

**Rule 87. Arizona's medication is to be forcefully fed to her every day.**

Mississippi hummed in thought as she thumbed through several documents on planned upgrades; namely, the missile conversions. Boston had already volunteered for the job, with the conversion schedule in three months.

"I wonder if I can persuade Admiral Holloway to put me in the conversion queue," she muttered to herself.

Her pleasant daydreams of slinging Terrier missiles at Abyssal aircraft were rudely interrupted by the sudden sounds of battle outside.

"I swear, if O'Bannon is challenging Idaho for the title of Potato Master again..." she grumbled as she poked her head out of her room.

It was not O'Bannon challenging Idaho. Instead, it was the Big Five facing off against-

"Oh, for the love of pickles..." Mississippi groaned as Arizona, bedecked in the black and white color scheme of the Abyssals, threw down with five other battleships, her sister trying futilely to talk her down. "Pennsylvania! You're supposed to be feeding Arizona her medication!"

"B-But! S-She didn't want to!" Pennsylvania wailed. "A-And she gave me the puppy-dog eyes!"

"And you didn't just shove the pills down her throat _like you're supposed to?!_ " Mississippi snapped as her temper steadily frayed. "You know what? Don't answer that! I'm gonna be handling her medication from now on."

~o~

Mississippi glared at the bottle of pills, as if willing it to not be empty.

"Screw it, I'll just give her an equivalent dose of Valium," the battleship decided. "Same effect, anyway."

~o~

"Goddammit, Mississippi!" West Virginia howled as tried to keep Arizona from moving forward, despite the very toothy tentacle snapping at her. "You were in charge of her medication! What the fuck happened?!"

"I thought Valium would have the same effect!" Mississippi shot back as she ducked back and forth around Arizona's swings. "Clearly I was wrong!"

"Oh, for God's sake! You're off medication duty, I'll take care of it!"

~o~

"500 milligrams?" West Virginia said as she read the label. "Ugh, why couldn't they give the dosage in number of pills? Screw it, three should be enough."

~o~

"And what have we learned today, West Virginia?" Admiral Holloway asked as the battleship soaked in one of the repair jacuzzis.

"That 500 milligrams equals four pills, got it," she groaned as she rubbed her aching... well, everything.

"No, that if you're not sure about dosage, ask next time." He sighed, taking in the sight of all twelve Standard-type battleships soaking in repair jacuzzis. "Not that it matters. Kearsarge is taking over, and she'll be consulting the repair ships every time."


	35. Rule 91

**Rule 91. No matter how amusing it might be, ransoming off the Americans' coffee supplies for pure sadistic entertainment is not funny.**

Zuikaku impatiently tapped her foot as she waited for the Americans to arive. Things had calmed down enough that, rather than the small task groups the US Navy had sent before, they had sent a full carrier task force for joint exercises. Today was supposed to be an archery competition, but the Americans were late! All four of them!

"Where the hell are they?" Kaga grumbled further down the range. "They were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago!"

"I'll go find them," Akagi volunteered. "Maybe they got lost or something."

Another ten minutes were spent in an increasingly tense silence before the Americans stumbled in, bleary-eyed and universally carrying cups of coffee.

"Wow, you guys look like shit," Kaga bluntly observed.

"Sorry about that, we're really tired right now," Enterprise mumbled. "Our coffee supply vanished overnight."

Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Kaga all glanced between each other in confusion. "But... the cafeteria serves coffee, doesn't it?"

"That weak-ass boiler gunk?" Hornet spat. "Why do you think we're here instead of curled under our sheets?"

"So, do you guys want to call off the exercise, or-"

"HELL NO!"

~o~

 _'I'm going to have to ask them how they did so well while dead on their feet,'_ Zuikaku mused as she walked towards the cafeteria for lunch with her fellow carriers, tuning out Kaga's ongoing litany of complaint. _'I mean, they_ beat us. _I'd love to know that trick for the next time we have three battles in as many days.'_

"-wonder where their coffee went."

"Sorry, Shokaku, what was that?" Zuikaku said apologetically. "I wasn't paying attention."

"I was just wondering where the coffee the Americans brought went," she said. "I mean, it can't have just gotten up and walked away."

"Eh, the battleships or cruisers probably pilfered it," Akagi replied. "I know that's how I keep up my candy supplies."

"Wait, you were the one who took Desdiv 6's Halloween candy?" Kaga exclaimed.

Akagi immediately flushed red. "Th-They didn't need it, it was a week after Halloween!"

"Well, don't let Tenryuu do hear that," Zuikaku chuckled, causing Akagi to turn pale at the thought.

The four carriers entered the cafeteria to find it quieter than usual, and it was not hard to see why. A palpable aura of gloom hung over the tables the Americans had commandeered, and all of them looked dead tired. Except Johnston, she just looked dead.

Zuikaku pursed her lips in concern. She actually _liked_ the Americans and their energy, especially Enterprise, and to see them so sedate just seemed wrong.

"You guys go ahead. I'm gonna go see what's wrong," she said to the other carriers. Shokaku waved goodbye as Zuikaku walked up to the table containing Hornet, Yorktown, Enterprise, Essex, Washington, and Massachusetts and sat down.

"So, did you guys all lose your coffee?" she asked.

"Yeah," Washington groaned as she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. "Which doesn't make any sense. It can't have run out, because we keep plenty in reserve. We can't have lost it, or we'd not have rested until we found it. Someone must have taken it, and I don't know who."

"Eesh, that sucks," Zuikaku replied, and she meant it. Days without coffee were simply hell. "What's up with Johnston, by the way?"

"She-" Hornet's answer was interrupted by a massive yawn. "She tried a trick of hers. Basically took a shot of whiskey and dumped it in some cafeteria coffee. It worked - for the two hours it lasted. She's completely crashed now."

The trill of a ringtone sounded out before Zuikaku could reply. "I got it," Enterprise said. "Hello?"

The six shipgirls at the table watched in concern as Enterprise's expression began shifting between panic and anger. Moving the phone from her ear, the carrier turned on the speaker phone. "There, you happy?"

 _"Yes, much. Now, as I was saying to Enterprise, if you all want to see your precious coffee again, you'll do exactly as I say."_

"Iku... what are you doing," Zuikaku monotoned.

 _"Oh, hey Zuikaku! Oh, you know, collecting resources, sinking Abyssals, blackmailing Americans, all that jazz."_

"Well, Iku or whatever your name is," Hornet spat. "What's to stop us from just ordering more coffee from the States?"

 _"Let me answer your question with a question. Do you really think you can keep this up for two weeks?"_

One look at the Americans and Zuikaku knew they probably wouldn't be able to keep it up for two _days_. Glancing around, she located Kongo and began waving her over to the table.

"And what's to stop us from just finding you and beating it out of you?" Washington growled.

 _"Please, you may scare the surface ships, but you don't scare me. One torpedo salvo, that's all I needed for your sister and that's all I need for you."_

"You-" Washington snarled, lunging forward only to be blocked by Massachusetts' outstretched arm.

"What do you want, then?" she said, silently pointing out an approaching Kongo.

 _"Well... why don't we start with a swimsuit calendar and work our way upwards? I'll have to find a new photographer after what happened to Aoba, but oh well."_

By this point, Kongo had reached the table, and had completely bypassed "thunderous" and "demented". In fact, she was deathly calm, and Zuikaku found herself almost wishing that that axe-crazy, vent-crawling persona of hers was at the forefront.

Almost.

"Hello, Iku," she said, her voice icier than Greenland.

 _"Oh, hey, Kongo. Are you gonna try to stop me?"_

"No," Kongo replied. "I'm not going to _try_ to stop you."

At the other end of the American section, Heermann held a shaking, crying Hoel. This was the Kongo that had sunk the Taffy 3 destroyers, that Heermann had been extraordinarily lucky to fight and live to tell the tale. The destroyer blinked - and suddenly she was gone.

 _"Well, that's all you can do. I mean, your weak point is submarines, right? So even if you do find me- Oh. Shit."_

~o~

This musn't register on an emotional level, _desu._

First: distract target.

Then block her blind 5.5".

Counter with 14" to conning tower.

BURNING LOVE.

Dazed, she'll attempt wild torpedo launch.

Employ hull bulge.

And hull shot.

Block another 5.5".

Weaken starboard freeboard.

And fracture.

Break cracked holding tank.

Traumatize torpedo room.

Remove 5.5" gun entirely.

6" HE to engine room.

In summary: upperworks wrecked, hull cracked in three places, torpedoes non-functional, dive capability compromised, engine room disabled. Estimated repair time: three weeks. Estimated time to psychological recover: three days. Chances of keeping coffee: zero.


	36. Rule 92

**Rule 92. Tama, please stop depositing dead animals on the Admiral's desk. Ooyodo is tired of cleaning up after you.**

As per her usual routine, Ooyodo was up and in Admiral Goto's office well before the Admiral himself was scheduled to arrive. The secretary ship had adopted this policy shortly after she was assigned and the depth of insanity in Yokosuka was made clear. This way, she could intercept many of the early problems and sort them out, something even more important after the nervous breakdown he had suffered last month.

Of course, it was a thoroughly thankless job, as evidenced by the dead bird she found on the Admiral's desk.

"Goddammit, Tama," she grumbled. Sighing, she went to retrieve a plastic bag. Using it as a glove, she gingerly picked up the dead animal and ferried it to the incinerator, where it was disposed of. Cleaning the desk of blood and feathers took another fifteen minutes, and she had just finished and gotten behind her desk when Admiral Goto arrived.

"Good morning, Admiral," she greeted.

"Morning, Ooyodo," Admiral Goto replied. "How's the workload today?"

"Not bad," she replied. "No worse than usual, at least. You should talk to Tama, though. She left another "present" on your desk."

Goto sighed. "This is what, the third time? I'll talk to her. In the meantime-"

"Your coffee should be brewing now," Ooyodo answered.

"Thanks, Ooyodo. You're a lifesaver."

~o~

Two days later, Ooyodo walked into the office with an inexplicable feeling of dread. Why she felt that way became clear when she peeked into the Admiral's office to find the dead form of an Abyssal I-class destroyer dripping ichor all over it.

"What the heck?" she exclaimed. "Who would just leave this here? Who would go to the trouble of hunting down an Abyssal destroyer, which would require cutting it off from its division, then killed it and brought it back to the Admiral's office like some sort of demented oh goddammit Tama."

Sighing, Ooyodo went in search of some of the janitorial staff. And Akashi. This was well above her housekeeping skills.

~o~

Three days later, Ooyodo carefully poked her head into the Admiral's office, and like the last two times there was nothing dead on the desk, Abyssal or otherwise. There was, however, the sleeping form of Tama curled up on top of the desk monitor.

 _'How is she fitting on that?'_ Ooyodo wondered to herself. Deciding to leave the question to someone else, she went to her desk and retrieved a small air horn she kept on hand, mostly for waking up shipgirls that fell asleep when meeting the Admiral.

The resulting burst of sound prompted Tama to let out a very feline shriek and leap up onto the ceiling, hissing at Ooyodo.

"Yeah, yeah, real scary, Tama," Ooyodo deadpanned. "Now get out of here before Admiral Goto gets in for work."

Throwing one last glare at the secretary ship, Tama let go of the ceiling and flipped back onto her feet before stalking out the door.

"For Christ's sake, hasn't that girl ever heard of a bed?" Ooyodo grumbled as she went to make the Admiral's morning coffee.

~o~

Two days later, Ooyodo was looking over some requisition forms when she heard a knock at the door.

"Come in!" she called out. The door opened, admitting a serious-faced Tatsuta.

"I need to see the Admiral about a... discipline issue," the light cruiser stated.

Ooyodo glanced at Goto's closed door. He had gone into a conference call with his fellow admirals a half hour ago, and knowing those conference calls, not only would he be busy for the next hour, he'd be completely smashed afterward and thus useless for the rest of the day.

"The Admiral is busy for the rest of the day," Ooyodo answered. "What is the problem, anyway? I might be able to help you with it."

"Well..." Tatsuta trailed off. "I invited Ashigara, Kongo, and Sendai to watch some Mexican telenovelas on one of the lounge TVs. Except Tama was sleeping on it and all the other TVs are claimed."

"Those are all flatscreens, how on Earth did she-" Ooyodo cut herself off and gave her head a vigorous shake. "Not important. What is important is that I can do something about this. Could you take me to where she is?"


	37. Rule 99

**Rule 99. No, repair buckets will not fix electronics.**

"Come on..." Sendai breathed. "Come on, come on, you little... fuck!"

As Zitz once again died by hitting a spike while riding a snake, Sendai felt the rage that had been building ever since the first speeder bike build to an explosive crescendo. Roaring in anger, she hurled the Playstation controller she had been using at Naka's 1.5 million yen gaming and video editing computer. The whole contraption was knocked to the floor, it's screen thoroughly shattered. With a wheezy cough of the cooling fan, it died.

As she came down from her anger high, breathing heavily, Sendai paled as she realized what she had just done. "Ooooohhh, fuck me, Naka's going to kill me if she finds out! I gotta fix this somehow!"

Grabbing up the wrecked machine, she snuck out of the room and made a beeline for Akashi's workshop.

~o~

"Sorry, Sendai," Akashi said apologetically. "But this is kinda out of my league. I'm used to working with stuff between the 20s and 40s, not modern computers."

"I'm gonna die..." Sendai moaned. "Naka is going to murder me, and bury my body in the mountains, and they're all gonna laugh."

"Well, if you don't want that to happen, I suggest you either find a good computer repair shop or simply grovel and promise to pay for a new one," Akashi replied. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to go recalibrate Mogami's turret mounts."

As Akashi left, grumbling about overly reckless heavy cruisers, Sendai's eyes fell on the stack of Instant Repair Buckets Akashi kept on hand for emergencies. Quickly making sure that Akashi was indeed out of sight, Sendai reached over and grabbed one before creeping out the door and back to Naka's room.

Back in Naka's room, the light cruiser popped off the lid of the bucket and poured the contents on the computer.

 _'Come on, come on, work!'  
_  
The computer remained stubbornly damaged.

"Fuck! WhatdoIdo, WhatdoIdo, WhatdoIdo, WhatdoI-!"

"Sendai? I-Is that my computer?"

Slowly, her face frozen in a rictus grin, Sendai turned her head around slowly to see Naka standing in the doorway, her face bypassing red entirely and going straight to purple. The sound of whistling high-pitched steam sounded out as Naka raised her foot and planted it in Sendai's face.

~o~

"Hey, everybody, it's Naka-chan! And I'm here once again with my weekly gaming stream!"

"Now, today, we have a very special guest playing! Say hi, Sendai!"

"H-Hello."

"Sendai here will be playing Super Meat Boy, for 100% completion! And all in one sitting! Don't worry, those of you with short attention spans, I'll be sure to get a highlights video up on Youtube by Tuesday."


	38. Rule 102

**Rule 102. After last week's incident, "Mad Scientist Battles" are now strictly forbidden.**

South Dakota grinned as she slotted the last component into place. Finally, her grand project was completed. Grabbing a large lever, she thunked it up, causing the dozen massive tesla coils she had built out in the Nevada desert to spark to life.

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! IT'S ALL MINE! ALL MINE! VICTORY AT LAST!"

The project had started soon after what Naval Base San Diego was calling the "Espresso Incident". South Dakota had taken serious damage in the fight, but not so serious that the US Navy could spare the resources yet to get her back up to full fighting capacity. She had promptly been sidelined, and boredom had quickly set in.

And, as any good Admiral would tell you, a bored shipgirl is a dangerous shipgirl.

To his credit, Admiral Holloway had quickly noticed, and suggested that South Dakota dust off one of the engineering projects she had come up with during her initial training, and she had chosen the tesla coils.

Back in Nevada, a grinning and occasionally giggling South Dakota flipped another switch and turned a knob. The tesla coils adjusted, the lightning now producing a noticeable sound.

Turning to the camera, she grinned even wider. "Your move, girls."

~o~

"Akashi!" Yubari cried out as she burst into the repair ship's workshop. "We need to respond!"

"Oh, agreed," Akashi replied, pulling out a blue piece of paper. "In fact, I've got something in mind."

Yubari glanced at the bluprints, and grinned. "Excellent. We'll show that American not to mess with Japanese engineering."

~o~

Slowly, carefully, Vanguard poured a small amount of hydrogen sulfide into a chilled container holding some dioxygen difluoride.

The resulting explosion was heard for miles.

"It works!" Vanguard whooped, scorched but largely unharmed. "Oh, man, how much energy was that? Man! Okay, we've established that fluorine is awesome, let's try nitrogen next!"

~o~

"You've signed the release waivers, Herr Gunther?" Gneisenau asked as she looked over her plans one last time.

"Yes. If it will allow me to walk again..."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," Gneisenau waved off. "Just be ready to fight. Pride of the country and all that."

"I am a soldier, Gneisenau. I will do my duty."

~o~

"Alright, firing in three... two... one... fire!"

Chapayev hastily slipped her flash goggles on as her baby fired, a beam of blue-white light streaking nigh-instantaneously across the tundra to its target, an old reserve T-72. The target was hit, throwing up a huge cloud of steam in its wake.

When the steam cleared, the target was still there. Except now it was a misshapen lump of metal, the turret nowhere to be seen.

"Looks like it works," Admiral Makarov remarked.

"Da."

~o~

"Get back here, you stupid ducks!" Provence shouted as she chased after her ducks of DOOM! "I am your creator! I order you to- ack!"

"Quack!"

~o~

One week later, Midway was the scene of the greatest carnage of Abyssals to this point in the war. The water burned as Vanguard released her chemical concoctions.

~o~

[I'm on fire! Why am I on fire?!]

[Oh God even the water is on fire!]

"Don't be silly, it's too busy exploding to be on fire!"

~o~

Shells plinked uselessly off two separate armored hides.

~o~

"Hahahahahaha! German science is the best in the world!" Gunther shouted as he tore another light cruiser asunder with his bare hands.

"Hey! Killstealer!" Yubari shouted her vintage RX-78 casually punted away a destroyer before pulling out a beam saber. "Stay out of my way, or I might step on you!"

~o~

And from the island itself, twin beams of death prevented anything from getting close.

~o~

South Dakota lounged on the beach of Midway atoll, dressed in a black one-piece with cutouts on the back, sides, and midriff, sunglasses covering her eyes and a glass-bulbed rod in one hand and a pina colada in the other. With a roar, an Abyssal Flagship Ru-class popped up out of the water - and was promptly fried by lightning and white death.

"Nice gun you've got there," South Dakota remarked as her tesla generators sparked.

"Da. Yours is impressive, too," Chapayev added, sipping a vodka and Coke while wearing an orange bikini of her own, her death ray in easy reach.


	39. Rule 105

**Rule 105. Any and all games of "Extreme Battleship" are to cease immediately.**

"I'm so bored!"

Amsterdam sighed as Montpelier complained, loudly and at length on the couch next to her, about how bored she was. The light cruiser had evidently been hitting the dictionary again, because there were a lot of adjectives in the rant that she'd never heard of.

"We have a large library of movies, video games, and books, and access to the wonder of entertainment that is the internet, and you're _bored_?" an irritated Birmingham snapped from one of the armchairs.

"Yeah, but that just has you sit and do nothing!" Montpelier fired back. "I want to actually _do_ something for fun, dammit!"

"We could play Battleship again," Amsterdam finally spoke up. "You seem to like it."

"Ugh, we've played it, like, a million times. I mean, I like the game, but at a certain point it just gets repetitive, you know?"

The three light cruisers lapsed into silence before Birmingham spoke up.

"Well, why don't we make it a little more... interesting?" she said, her face studiously neutral.

"Whattaya got in mind?" Montpelier replied, poking her head over the couch.

"Well... we've got all these bored shipgirls here..." Birmingham replied, her mouth slowly widening. "Why don't we make the game a little more... real?"

~o~

"Alright, usual battleship rules in place," Birmingham told Amsterdam and Montpelier. "You also have video feeds of each of your sides, to make this a little more interesting."

"You'd better not screw this up, Amsterdam!" Indiana playfully told the light cruiser.

"Better to be lucky than good, I say," Enterprise stated to Montpelier.

"Begin!" Birmingham called out.

"Alright, let's go C-5 first," Montpelier said.

Out on the water, Alabama and Laffey let loose a salvo of shells to the aforementioned grid square, Cavalla adding in a pair of torpedoes for good measure. Enterprise and the PT corgi happily running in a circle stood aside, waiting for the next turn. The shells and torpedoes screamed in - and blew up a patch of unoccupied water.

"Miss," Birmingham announced, Montpelier jabbing the white peg in place. But before Amsterdam could start her turn there was a loud explosion.

"What was that?" Montpelier said.

"My bad," Cavalla deadpanned. "Torpedo hit a dock."

"Come on already, Amsterdam!" Cassin Young called through the feed. "Give us a place to shoot already!"

"In that case... E-8."

"Miss."

There was another loud explosion, and this time it was Cassin Young who was the culprit.

"My bad! I overshot one of my shells, but I think I just hit an empty warehouse."

~o~

"Alright, I won!" Montpelier whooped, throwing her fists in the air. "Still the Battleship champion, bitches! Woo!" The light cruiser frowned as she took in the shellshocked faces of her two sisters.

"Oh, come on, Amsterdam, I didn't beat you that badly." There was a beat as she felt a presence behind her. "Admiral Holloway is right behind me, isn't he."

"Yes," the officer in question ground out. "Yes I am."


	40. Rule 107

**Rule 107. The practice of strapping bombs and torpedoes to commercially purchased R/C aircraft is forbidden.**

Admiral Charles Cunningham, commander of the Royal Navy Shipgirl base at Portsmouth, was working through some paperwork - specifically, a requisition order for his minelayers, who were beginning to run low - when he heard a loud explosion somewhere on base. The explosion only caused him to perk up briefly. When no more were forthcoming, he shrugged and went back to his paperwork. In a force that included large numbers of MTB bulldogs, all of the Royal Navy's fast minelayers, and Campbeltown, explosions were a very frequent occurrence, to the point that they had three dedicated bomb ranges, two for walking the bulldogs.

It wasn't until he took his afternoon walk when he found out that it wasn't coming from the bombing range.

"What the hell?" he snapped as he took in the charred remains of one of the harbor's wooden piers. Taking a brief moment to thank God that Victory and Warrior were no longer tied up there, he knelt down to examine the wreckage. Of course, just looking at it didn't reveal anything. Sighing, Cunningham rose to his feet and resigned himself to getting the closest RN forensics team involved.

~o~

"A _what?_ " Cunningham exclaimed as he read the forensics report a few days later. "A surface torpedo?!"

"Yup," the head of the forensics team said as he picked at his nails. "Can't have been from a destroyer, though. Not enough space. Maybe one of your bulldogs got loose?"

"Maybe," Cunningham reluctantly agreed. Sighing, he stood out of his chair to stare out of the window. The forensics officer took that as the dismissal it was and left.

"Doesn't feel like one of the corgis," he muttered to himself. "What would it be, then?"

The view from the harbor didn't offer any answers. The quadcopter RC drone that flew by, a goddamn _fairy-scale 250-lb aviation bomb strapped under its wings_ did. Admiral Cunningham resisted the urge to dive out the window at the drone, and his patience was rewarded as a fairy-piloted Sea Gladiator, its pilot shouting "Oi!" repeatedly at the machine with surprising invective, flew in front of the control camera. The drone weaved back and forth, but against the highly maneuverable biplane it was of no use, and whoever was controlling it began to bring it back for a controlled descent, the Sea Gladiator orbiting ahead.

Admiral Cunningham took the stairs two at a time as he dashed down to the street. He burst out the front door of the building just as Eagle turned the corner, dragging Abdiel and Hermes by their ears.

"- believe you two!" he heard the carrier bark at them. "Blowing up the dock was one thing, but carrying an armed bomb over a civilian area?! That's just too much!"

"Eagle," Cunningham greeted, the carrier giving a hasty salute by dropping Hermes. "Glad to see you're on top of this. What the hell is going on?"

"Abdiel got the bright idea of strapping ordnance to those cheap RC drones you see all the time," Eagle replied. "And roped Hermes into an experiment to see if she could use them herself. Said she could devote her usual airwing to fighters."

"And you went along with this?" Cunningham asked incredulously. Hermes didn't answer, merely scrunching her face up in an adorable pout.

"You know how she is about air defense, Admiral," Eagle said.

Cunningham sighed. He did know about Hermes' phobia of dive bombers. Freeing up her fairies for fighter duty must have been incredibly appealing.

"Alright, Hermes is to be confined to the barracks for three days." The carrier groaned, but didn't protest. "And Abdiel? I'm putting you in charge of making sure the bulldogs get walked."

The fast minelayer paled, her eyes widening. "No... y-you can't-"

"Oh yes I can!" Cunningham snapped, looming over the shorter shipgirl. "Your little stunt lost us a pier and could've killed civilians. You're damn lucky Eagle caught this now, or I might have had you scrapped. Are we clear?"

"C-Crystal."


	41. Rule 108

**Rule 108. Yukikaze and William D. Porter are hereby forbidden from being assigned to the same mission team. We still have no idea what happened, but we now have half a dozen Abyssals seeking asylum from the "Vortex of Luck."**

"William D. Porter, Yukikaze. Yukikaze, William D. Porter, also known as Willie D."

The two destroyers eyed each other before Willie D. mad the first move. "H-Hello," Willie D. stammered, sticking out her hand.

"Hi!" Yukikaze replied, vigorously shaking the other destroyer's hand. "So, not that I don't mind getting to know someone new, why are we here?"

"FOR SCIENCE!" South Dakota bombastically announced, a bolt of lightning hitting the sea behind her despite the clear skies.

"You, Yukikaze, are the luckiest ship in the Japanese navy," Yubari answered. "And Willie D. there is the _un_ luckiest in the American navy. We want to see what happens when you two are on a mission together. Because, you know, FOR SCIENCE!"

Both destroyers flinched as the lightning came down again, this time behind Yubari.

"R-Right." Yukikaze took a deep breath, pulling herself back together. "So, how are we gonna do that?"

"I called in a few favors, so I know there are a few Abyssal destroyers puttering around over there," South Dakota replied, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "You two are gonna go kill 'em while we record everything. If you need help, holler."

"Sounds easy enough." Grinning, Yukikaze grabbed Willie D. by the arm. "Let's go, Wilfred B. Poutine!"

"It's Willam D. Porter..." the hapless Fletcher mumbled as she was dragged away.

"I've got the drone up," Yubari replied after a few minutes. "Now what?"

"Now?" South Dakota looked up from where she was blowing up an inflatable raft. "Now we chillax while those two do their thing."

~o~

Admiral Holloway scowled at the satellite feed he was getting on his computer. The black and red 2-d swirly energy thingy - the technobabble from the UC San Diego physics team had gone right over his head - lurched slightly, getting just a little bigger.

"So," he said, turning to the Armored Carrier Princess. "You and your entire force want to... defect to the US Navy."

"Yesssss..." the Abyssal hissed/growled. "Weird... shtuff h'ppens... near thing..."

"Yes, I gathered that when the Predator drone we sent clipped through the water." When the eggheads had given him the odds of that happening, he had immediately ordered a hundred-mile quarantine zone around the thing. "And you said something about others going to Japan?"

"Yesssss... You... c'll hrrrrrr... 'nchorage hime..."

"Well, that'll be interesting..." Holloway muttered to himself. "Alright, usual thing for defectors. Follow our laws, and you're pretty much free to do what you want, including sign up with the Shipgirl corps."

The Abyssal nodded, and Holloway pushed over the papers. One stroke of a pen later, the Armored Carrier Princess was officially a US citizen.

 _'Jesus Christ this is a weird day.'_


	42. Rule 114

**Rule 114. The Bet between Johnston and Vittorio Veneto to see who can get the biggest badass from the wimpiest starting materials is hereby suspended and they are to cease any related activities effective immediately.**

It was a somewhat comical sight. Vittorio Veneto had been dispatched to Norfolk for an AA refit, while Johnston was taking a refresher course on ASW. The two had met, and somehow they had found themselves glaring at each other from across one of the cafeteria tables.

"There's only one way to settle this," Johnston suddenly said, breaking the tense silence.

"I agree. How much do you want to put down on this?" Vittorio Veneto replied in accented but very understandable English.

"Put down?" Johnston said incredulously, before throwing her head back and laughing. "The only thing we're betting here is our pride and reputations! We need nothing else!"

Vittorio Veneto grinned in response. "Right answer. So, let's show each other our candidates."

Johnston grinned in turn. "Kitkun Bay!" she shouted out. "Get over here!"

The squat form of an escort carrier shuffled up to the table, the shipgirl glancing nervously between Johnston and Vittorio Veneto.

"H-Hi," she said, giving a short wave.

"Hmm, not bad, not bad," Vittorio Veneto hummed. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone and queued up a video. "Meet Pola."

On the screen was a heavy cruiser, hiding under her bedsheets.

"Pola, come on, you need to get out of bed," came an unseen voice.

"N-No!" Pola squeaked out from under the covers. "I-I'm not letting the scary carriers get me!"

As the video ended, Johnston let out a low whistle. "Well, can't say you're not stepping up to the plate." She hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "Hey, why don't we add a little challenge? Let's swap candidates; you beat Kitkun Bay into shape, and I'll do the same for Pola."

"Johnston, what?"

"I like how you think, American," Vittorio Veneto smirked. "Agreed."

Reaching out, each grasped the other's hand and gave a firm shake.

~o~

"Alright, ya little scrub!" Johnston barked as she threw open the door to Pola's room. "Up and at 'em! You've been wallowing in bed long enough!"

Pola didn't reply, merely snuggling tighter into her blanket cocoon. Johnston, for her part, merely shrugged and picked up the whole ensemble, dragging it with her.

"Noooooo!" Pola sobbed. "The scary carriers will get me!"

"Sucks to be you, then, because it's time for some aversion therapy!" Johnston shot back in passable Italian.

~o~

"Alright, lesson number one," Vittorio Veneto announced. "Evasion."

"I, uh, I still don't know what I'm doing here..." Kitkun Bay stated hesitantly.

"You don't need to worry about. All you need to worry about is- DODGE!" As Vittorio Veneto said that, her rigging trained every single gun on her, from 15" to 90mm AA, at the thin-skinned escort carrier.

"You can't take blows, so evasion is everything!" Vittorio Veneto barked as Kitkun Bay frantically dove out of the way. "And that means economy of movement! None of this diving shit! Again!"

~o~

"You're a Zara class cruiser! The only ones out there tougher than you are the battleships! The only thing you lack is grit, and I'm gonna do my damnedest to pound that into you!"

~o~

"Fight back, maggot! You can't dodge forever, all it takes is one lucky hit! AND NO PLANES!"

~o~

"You can't just tank everything! Evasion must be a part of your repetoire! Follow the shell splashes!"

~o~

"You must be able to be accurate at range, and vicious up close! That way you have no weak range!"

~o~

The Mediterranean Convoys were always a sight to behold. Hundreds of ships, packed full of sand, oil, munitions, and sundry manufactured goods traversed the entire sea, defended from Abyssal marauders by the cream of the Royal Navy, Marine Nationale, and Regia Marina. And in recent months, by American escort carrier groups.

As usual, the Abyssals made a go at the convoy, forcing the distant escort into a colossal battle that involved close to a dozen battleships and fleet carriers, the largest consistent fleet actions in the war.

In this one, though, there was a new sight: Johnston and Vittorio Veneto standing back, identical psychotic grins on their faces as Pola and Kitkun Bay, the latter having already launched her planes, tore through the Abyssal van at suicidally short ranges. Suicidal for anyone else, that is.

"I-Is anyone else feeling a blob of existential despair in the pit of their stomachs?" Renown whimpered as she took in the carnage and the expressions on the two instructors.

"Oui," Provence nodded.

"Yes," Roma replied.

"Uh, duh?" Ark Royal added.

"Meh, I'm used to it. It's kinda like when big sis Richelieu gets an idea," Jean Bart shrugged. Suddenly paling, she whirled around to see Richelieu approaching VV and Johnston with an identical psychotic grin of her own.

"If you guys are planning to do this again, mind if I join in?" she said.

"NO!" came the unanimous reply.


	43. Rule 115

**Rule 115. Similarly, The Bet between Nagato and I-19 to see who can turn out the biggest moeblob from the roughest starting materials is suspended.**

The still waters of the East China Sea were normally fairly calm this time of year. Typhoon season was not for some months, leaving very smooth seas. Even three blond heads popping out of the water only briefly disturbed it, and it soon went back to its calm state.

"I knew we should've taken that left turn at Bangkok..." a young, blond girl in a wetsuit-like uniform grumbled to herself as she examined a laminated map of East Asia. This was U-506, and her hair was cut boyishly short.

"We did take a left turn at Bangkok," another girl in the same outfit and with her blond hair tied up into a pair of long pigtails retorted. This was U-510. "See, this is why I'm the navigator."

"Girls, as much as watching you two argue over directions is fun, I think we're here," the third said as she pointed off in the distance, her blond hair tied up in a messy bun. This was U-508.

The two bickering U-boats turned towards where their sister was pointing, and immediately slapped their foreheads as they realized they had already reached their destination: Okinawa.

"Hang on..." U-510 said as she fished a laminated National Geographic photo out of her waterproof backpack. Holding it up to the distant silhouette, she stuck out her tongue as she compared the two.

"Well, looks like we are here," U-510 said sheepishly. "Now, how are we gonna find U-511?"

"Can't we just ask?" U-506 asked skeptically.

"No good. None of us speak Japanese, and I don't think any of the Japanese shipgirls are gonna speak German," U-508 shot down.

Suddenly, U-510 swung her head out towards a barren patch of ocean.

"Uh, 510? What are you doing?" U-506 said, confused.

"Stay on guard, girls," the submarine said grimly. "We're not alone."

The other two U-boats tensed, hands near their weapons, as the water started to bubble. With a burst of water, a submarine shipgirl soared out of the water, a torpedo strapped to her back. The trio of U-boats relaxed as they took in the half-sailor fuku and the blue-grey school swimsuit, bleach-blond hair holding a pink sakura flower.

"Hello!" she chirped _in fluent German_ , waving hello at them. "Wow, you guys have really come a long way! I'm RO-500, and I'm here to make sure you all get settled in on your visit!"

"Uh, thank you, Ro-500," a slightly stunned U-508 said. "I didn't realize the Japanese Navy had any shipgirls that spoke German."

"Oh, yeah, Yakumo has been giving lessons to whoever will come," RO-500 answered. "But follow me! The base isn't too far."

And so, the four submarines set off in an impromptu convoy. RO-500 lead the way, humming some Japanese pop song, while the U-boats trailed behind. Not terribly talkative to strangers at the best of times, they kept quiet.

"So..." RO-500 said. "What are you guys here for, anyway?"

"We're actually here to meet our sister, U-511," U-506 answered. "Once we get settled in, could you tell us where she is? Admiral Hartmann said she was stationed at Okinawa, but we don't know anything more than that."

"I thought that's why you guys were here," RO-500 said, before winking at them.

Suddenly, U-510 froze as she came to an epiphany.

 _'Fluent German,'_ she screamed inside herself as her sisters asked what was wrong. _'Tanned skin, like she's never been in a tropical sun. Blond hair. Recognized us as U-boats from a distance.'_

"U-511?!" she screeched, pointing a finger at the other submarine.

"Oh, come on, 510," U-506 scoffed. "This couldn't possibly be-"

"Nyahahahahaha, you got me," U-511 giggled - giggled! - as she rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment and stuck her tongue out. It was all sickeningly adorable. "I wanted to surprise you guys. Sorry for the deception."

"H-How..." U-508 breathed. "How did you get like... like _this?!_ "

"Iku! That's I-19," U-511 replied. "She showed me just how much fun it is to not be all stoic and reserved all the time. Even on duty!"

The three U-boats glanced at each other.

"That settles it," U-510 said. "This "Iku" must die for corrupting our sister. Agreed?"

"Agreed," U-506 and U-508 chorused.

~o~

 **Meanwhile, in Yokosuka:**

Admiral Goto sighed as he watched 3/4 of Desdiv 6 bawl their eyes out in a corner, Hibiki steadily downing a bottle of vodka. Turning to a grim-faced Tatsuta, he said, "Okay, what happened this time? Did someone leave Scream running againg?"

Tatsuta shook her head.

"Did they discover Five Night's at Freddy's?"

Another head shake.

"Oh god, don't tell me they found po-"

"No!" Tatsuta immediately denied. "No, god no. This isn't quite as bad, but it's still bad."

"Well, spit it out already, Tatsuta. I don't have all day," Goto snapped.

"It's... It's Tenryuu..." Tatsuta said hesitantly. "She's..."

"Admiral?"

Goto looked up to his door and immediately felt his jaw drop. There, in the doorway, stood Tenryuu. Her eyepatch and hair ornaments were gone, and her short hair had been done up in a pair of equally short pigtails. Her eyes were wide an innocent, a far cry from the cocky scowl she usually wore. Even her whole body language was different; softer, somehow. And her clothes, dear god her clothes. She was wearing a long sweaterdress that came to about mid-thigh, and sandals. Tenryuu never wore sandals! And that voice, so soft! Not scratchy like usual!

Admiral Goto rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the apparition in front of him. Nothing happened. Instead, Admiral Goto could swear he could see hearts and a bishie sparkle around Tenryuu.

"Admiral?" Tenryuu repeated in a plaintive voice that made him want to reach over and wrap her up in a big hug and never let go. Fighting to keep from retching from the sheer cognitive dissonance, he shakily waved in Tenryuu's direction.

"C-Could you w-wait outside?" he stammered. "I-I need to finish up this meeting."

"Y-Yes, Admiral," she replied, blushing and looking away.

Only when she was gone did Goto relax. "Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ," he groaned. "How the actual fuck did that happen?"

"You see the problem?" Tatsuta said. "As for how, I overheard Nagato saying something about "Winning the bet with Iku". Does that make any sense to you?"

Goto's face darkened as he recalled a recent email from Norfolk and Taranto about another, similar bet. "Yes, yes it does." His expression still darkened, he hit Tatsuta with a hardened stare. "Get Nagato here immediately, and I'll see what I can do about Tenryuu."

"Anything goes?"

"Anything goes."

~o~

 **The Next Day:**

South Dakota sighed as she read the Okinawa and Yokosuka blogs. She'd wanted to join in, too! Iowa would look so cute in that Mickey Mouse cap!


	44. Rule 116

**Rule 116. Whoever put the sword in the stone and left it outside San Diego Naval Base, please remove it. It's distracting our shipgirls worse than World of Warships did.**

Oklahoma panted the good pant of physical exertion as she jogged through the streets of Coronado, waving hello to the many other dedicated early morning runners and cyclists. As she approached the main entrance to Naval Base San Diego - she usually left through one of the side entrances - she came to a halt as she took in the very unusual sight.

"Huh. What's this doing here?" she wondered as she approached the sight, a large stone with a richly decorated European broadsword stuck into it. As she got closer, the battleship could see writing carved into the stone.

"'To the worthy'..." she mused. Glancing up at the stone, she gave a shrug. "Well, might as well try."

The stone wasn't that big, certainly not big enough for her to need to stand on it. Oklahoma reached out and grabbed it by the hilt, and tugged. No dice. Planting her foot on the stone, she _heaved_ , grunting in exertion. Still nothing.

"Geez, that's in there tight," she panted. "I think I'm gonna need more horsepower."

~o~

"So, I just need to pull the sword out, right?" Oklahoma City said as she eyed the sword.

"Yup!" Oklahoma confirmed. "I couldn't even budge it!"

"Of course you couldn't, you've got a quarter of the horsepower I do," Oklahoma City smirked. Her proclamation made, she grabbed the sword with one arm and yanked.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, the light cruiser wrapped her other hand around the hilt and tugged harder.

Still nothing.

Now outright growling, Oklahoma City planted her foot, and _yanked._ For over a minute, she pulled against the sword, sweat beading on her brow and the occasional grunt of exertion slipping out. Finally, her hands, slippery from sweat, slipped off the hilt, planting the Cleveland flat on her ass.

"Okay, this is not going to defeat me!" Oklahoma City declared, jabbing a finger at the offending sword. "I will be back, and with friends!"

The sword, being a sword, didn't respond.

~o~

"PULL!" Oklahoma City, Pasadena, and Birmingham cried out in unison as they yanked on a rope tied to the sword. Neither the rock nor the sword budged.

"What're you shitheads doing?" Iowa asked as she came upon the scene, the light cruisers announcing a renewed "PULL!"

Once again, the sword and stone failed to move. Sighing, Iowa set down her bag holding several bottles of liquor and marched up to the light cruisers.

"You fucking morons, you're never gonna get it out pulling sideways like that." With one move, Iowa snapped the rope and gripped the sword with both hands. "Here, lemme show ya how it's done."

Iowa yanked - and nothing happened.

The fast battleship frowned at the offending weapon. "Alright, you wanna play hardball, huh?" Pulling out her phone, Iowa dialed up her sisters and South Dakota. "Let's play fucking hardball."

~o~

"PULL!" Iowa shouted as she, her sisters, South Dakota, and half the base's fleet carriers pulled on the chain pulley South Dakota had devised. The sword remained stubbornly stuck.

"PULL!" came the cry again, the hundreds of shipgirls on the grass popping popcorn and watching the show.

"PULL!" And finally, the shipgirls pulling collapsed to the ground, exhausted. None of them noticed Enterprise walking up to the scene, looking notably curious.

"Jesus fuck is that thing _glued_ to that rock?" Iowa grumbled.

"That wouldn't work," South Dakota responded automatically. "It'd have to be seriously welded or melted to the rock."

"I have a simpler explanation," Enterprise countered as she walked up to the rock and smoothly pulled out the sword. "You are not worthy. Now, get back to work, all of you!"

Enterprise watched the shipgirls go before tearing off a panel on the hilt to reveal a fingerprint scanner underneath. Kicking the rock, it split open to reveal a set of powerful electromagnets thoroughly bolted to the bedrock.

"Okay, this was not Heermann, way too elaborate," she decided. "Whatever. I'd better go drop this off at NCIS, they can handle this better."


	45. Rule 118

**Rule 118. Do not comment on the relationship between Enterprise and Yamato. They're still cleaning up the last person who did so.**

It was a nice, warm spring morning, and Enterprise and Yamato could be found on a bench in a park near Yokosuka Naval Base, holding hands, with Enterprise's head resting on Yamato's soldiers. For these two ships, famous, revered, and superb in combat, was it any wonder that they preferred a serene day at the park for a date rather than anything more active?

As the two sat in companionable silence, they became aware of a minor commotion behind them. Not wanting to end the date so soon, they studiously ignored it.

Unfortunately, the commotion continued to build until it was a veritable cacophony of meaty thuds, rustling leaves and muffled shouts.

"Okay, seriously, what is going on here?" Enterprise snapped, turning around to find the source of the disturbance.

Musashi and Aoba froze, leaves in their hair and both pulling at each other's mouth. Aoba's camera was in two pieces, and Musashi's glasses had gotten shattered somewhere along the line. Suddenly, Musashi unfroze and, capitalizing on the distraction, clobbered Aoba over the head, knocking the heavy cruiser out.

"Musashi?!" Yamato exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I, Musashi, am following you, of course," she answered. "And before you ask, I do have a reason for following you two. Aside from preventing that American from ravishing my beloved sister-"

"HEY!"

"It's also to keep little rats like these from interfering," Musashi continued, kicking the downed Aoba for good measure. "You remember that anti-gay protest a few weeks back?"

Yamato flinched, while Enterprise scowled thunderously. "Yeah, I remember those asshats. By the time we got there they were all unconscious on the street." The carrier fixed Musashi with a piercing stare. "That was you?"

"Yup!" Musashi replied, grinning. "Anyway, I'll leave you two lovebirds to it. I haven't found anyone else around, so you should be good. See ya."

And with that, the battleship ducked back into the bushes, dragging Aoba's unconscious form with her. For a moment the two lovers were silent, contemplating how the hell Musashi had managed to hide behind a two-foot-high bush.

"I'm so sorry about her," Yamato said, embarrassed. "She just wants me to be happy, but-"

"Ssh..." Enterprise said, placing a finger on her girlfriend's lip. "It's okay, I completely understand. I get the same way about Hornet and Yorktown. Let's not let that ruin our date, okay?"

Yamato nodded demurely, and the two stared into each other's eyes. Their faces drifted closer and closer, lips almost touching, and-

"Yes, that's it. Now, let's see some tongue when you go in."

"DWAH!"

Both lovers shrieked and dove off the bench, reaching for rigging that wasn't there. Standing out of the bush was Kongo, who looked mildly stunned before snapping her fingers.

"Shoot! I got caught up in the moment, and now it's ruined!"

"Kongoooooo..." Enterprise growled.

"Oops! Gotta run!"

However, as Kongo turned to run, she forgot one very important fact: Enterprise was faster than her. The carrier caught up to the battleship and promptly tackled her to the ground. Kongo made to fight back - but dropped that idea when she saw Yamato looming over her.

"Enterprise, dear, before you haul her off to Admiral Goto, I, Yamato, want to know one thing from her," the battleship said.

"Go ahead," Enterprise grunted as she kept Kongo pinned.

A cold sweat broke out on the fast battleship's forehead as Yamato kneeled down next to her. "How did you get past Musashi? She has one of the best sensor suites in the fleet."

"Practice," Kongo smirked. "Lots and lots of practice."


	46. Rule 122

**Rule 123. Shipgirls are banned from signing contracts with the United Stated Department of Defense for access to their experimental weaponry.**

The Abyssal task force sailed over the water. Covering a few hundred square miles, it was one of the most formidable conventional forces yet assembled by the Abyssals. Over a dozen each of fleet carriers and battleships, dozens of cruisers of all tonnages, and hundreds of destroyers. And at the core of the fleet, four Flagship Ru-class battleships. With the majority if the American Pacific Fleet off chasing a decoy, the road to San Diego was wide open.

A sense of anticipation began to build among the Abyssals as they got within 100 miles, and nothing spotted them. Not drones, not AWACS, not surface ships or submarines. Completely undetected. The fleet carriers began launching aircraft to neutralize the fixed-wing assets and any shipgirls in harbor.

Anticipation turned to confusion and fear when their aircraft reached San Diego and began falling out of the sky for no apparent reason. No bursts from proximity-fused shells, no tracers from autocanon, no tellltale streak of smoke and fire from a missile. No, they approached and they died.

No matter. The Abyssals still had a large force of big-gun surface vessels. Battleships and heavy cruisers began to work up to flank speed, intent on charging into San Diego and shelling whatever was shooting down their aircraft. They didn't get far before a 44-lb dart of depleted uranium fell out of the sky at hypersonic velocities, smacking the lead Ru-class battleship in the face and pulping its entire head like pumpkin dropped from a great height.

~o~

Nautilus whistled as she watched this happen from several miles away, using a pair of binoculars.

"Nice shot," she said into her earpiece.

"Of course it's a nice shot!" West Virginia shot back. "I'm the one doing the shooting, after all!"

~o~

More depleted uranium darts began falling out of the sky in a steady stream, obliterating anything they hit. Whatever one could say about the Abyssals, though, they weren't cowards. The only way out was forwards, and the heavy ships continued to press forward.

Ten minutes of continued fire obliterated about a fifth of the force, but at that point the rain stopped. Sensing blood, the Abyssals pressed forward, San Diego Bay starting to come into view.

And there were there opponents. A few battleships, some light cruisers, and a dozen destroyers. Easy pickings.

At least, that's what they thought until the shipgirls opened fire.

Steel armor meant to withstand kinetic force melted to slag under globs of plasma hotter than the inside of a steel mill. Powerful lasers - now they could see the coherent light interacting with atmospheric particles - burned any destroyer trying to press closer. Return fire was completely useless, due to what appeared to be a _goddamn forcefield_ around each shipgirl.

And that was before reinforcements arrived, direct-firing railguns at the Abyssals.

It was too much. The Abyssals broke and ran, fleeing back to the carriers.

~o~

"Okay, the capital ships are gone," Nautilus announced. "Nobody here but me and the carriers."

"Roger that, Nautilus. You are cleared for Super Missile use."

The submarine hefted what looked to be a standard man-portable rocket launcher. Pressing the trigger, she fired a large missile at the Abyssals. The carriers had just turned towards the threat when it dove upwards and then down right in the center of the formation. The resulting explosion sprayed water and Abyssal parts hundreds of feet into the air, and when the smoke and mist vanished the only survivors were some bleeding destroyers at the edge of the formation.

~o~

The carriers were gone. How?! Impossible! And yet, that was what their eyes were telling them. There was only one thing to do: keep fleeing. Skirt away from any human settlement; do not go near any shipgirls.

It was a ragtag, exhausted, depleted band that trickled into the Indian Ocean a month later, one that did not count on the British and German cruisers and submarines in the area.

~o~

Admiral Holloway sighed as he finished reading the "proposal" from Mississippi, before stamping "denied" on the DoD contracts. Let the eggheads test experimental weaponry on something that was not his shipgirls, thank you very much.


	47. Rule 125

**Rule 125. Whoever put Hiei and Repulse in the same kitchen, please report to the mess hall for cleanup.**

The International Conference of Admirals was a major affair, with the Admirals of the primary shipgirl nations - the UK, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Canada, Argentina, and Spain - all meeting in person to hash out grand strategy against the Abyssals, set up the many joint missions and training sessions, and many other things that could not be worked out over video conferencing. The first had been held in Halifax, but Reykjavik had been chosen for the second as more neutral ground. And, as usual, each Admiral had brought a shipgirl with him or her, someone powerful but non-critical to their frontline strength. Of course, since they were not allowed to sit in on the meetings, that left the shipgirls very bored.

"Ugh, how long has it been?" HMCS Ontario groaned. "They gotta be getting close to done."

"It's been one hour, Ontario," Paris chided. "Be patient."

"You're one to talk," Giulio Cesare fired back. "You've already worn a groove in the carpet with your pacing."

The French battleship looked down and flushed upon seeing that Cesare was indeed right. "Well, can you blame me? This is just... unspeakably dull. Especially since none of us are allowed to use our phones."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were hoping something exciting would happen," Lexington observed.

"Uh, girls?" Rivadavia interrupted. "I hate to interrupt what I'm sure would've been an absolutely _fascinating_ conversation, but has anyone seen Repulse or Hiei in the last half hour?"

Lexington and Nurnberg both paled at the news, while the rest of the shipgirls simply looked confused.

"Oh, _scheisse,_ " the light cruiser swore. "I hope they didn't get into the same kitchen."

~o~

Three hours later, the hazmat team was dispatched to the afflicted kitchen, everyone else having already sealed off a 500-foot radius to stop the smell, which had been lovingly described as "bunker-C combined with a durian and a soap factory".

Two hours after that, the hazmat team was written off, and the whole containment zone was encased in concrete.

Twelve hours after that, a heavy lifter moved the sealed space to an active fissure and dropped it in. Environmentalists howled, but were shut up with pointed questions of "Where the hell are we going to dump it otherwise?!"

By that point, everyone involved had already agreed to never let Hiei and Repulse into the same kitchen. Ever.


	48. Rule 127

**Rule 127. Teasing/pranking the younger destroyers and subs** ** _will_** **lead to Tenryuu punishing you this is your only warning.**

Tatsuta and Desdiv 6 watched around a corner as Tenryuu skipped - skipped! - down the corridors of Yokosuka Naval Base. Whatever Nagato had done to her, it wasn't wearing off on its own. It was time for drastic measures.

"Alright, girls, you know the plan," Tatsuta whispered. "Make it convincing."

Akatsuki, Inazuma, and Hibiki nodded grimly, though Ikazuchi seemed to be distracted.

"Uh, girls?" she said, pointing down the hall opposite Tenryuu. "I don't think we need to."

Glancing in the direction of Ikazuchi's outstretched finger, Tatsuta grinned like a shark as she spotted Kitakami stomping down the hall in a foul mood.

 _'Sorry, Kitakami, but it's for everyone's good,'_ Tatsuta thought to herself. "Alright, girls. Do your worst."

~o~

Kitakami's thoughts were of the dark variety normally found in underground metal songs. First she had woken up being spooned by Ooi - again, damn swimsuit calendar - then the cafeteria had screwed up her favorite breakfast, and _then_ she had been forced to babysit some of the little rugrats while they went on a scouting mission. If she saw another destroyer today...

And oh happy day, there was one right now! One of Tenryuu's little brats, who she hadn't really interacted with. And there was Tenryuu herself. The torpedo cruiser shivered, and reminded herself to avoid Nagato at any cost.

Oh, wait, the destroyer was jabbering still. Which one was it? Ika-something? Meh, whatever, time to shut her up. Kitakami swung her foot up in a light front kick-

And suddenly blinked. How had she gotten stuck in the wall? And why was Tenryuu in her underwear? And oh dear, she looked quite upset. Really upset. That was quite the dark aura she had going there.

~o~

Desdiv 6 cheered and Tatsuta smiled as Tenryuu beat nine shades of hell out of Kitakami. Finally, panting, Tenryuu let the torpedo cruiser slump to the ground, bruised and likely concussed. A grin worked its way onto her face, and Tenryuu turned around to give a thumbs-up.

"Heh. Sorry it took me so long, girls."

"Tenryuu!" Akatsuki and Ikazuchi cried out, running up to give the light cruiser a hug.

"Aw, thanks, both of you," Tenryuu said. Turning her attention to the torn dress on the ground, she glanced at Tatsuta. "Burn it."

"With pleasure, dear sister," Tatsuta replied. "But, are you sure Nagato can't do something like this again?"

"Nah, not anymore," Tenryuu replied with a grin. "C'mon, call me-"

"D-Damn... m-momma bear..." Kitakami groaned.

Once again Tenryuu's face fell into an angry scowl. "Excuse me one moment." Reaching down, Tenryuu grabbed Kitakami by the hair and slammed her face-first into the wall. There was a crunch of snapping cartilage, and the torpedo cruiser slumped to the ground again.

"See?" Tenryuu grinned. "Doesn't work anymore."

"Yes, good job, sister," Tatsuta tittered. "But you should probably put some clothes on."

"Huh?" Tenryuu glanced down and immediately yelped and tried to cover herself. "Ack! Dammit, maybe I shouldn't have torn off that dress."


	49. Rule 129

**Rule 129. We don't care if it works, you are not to kill Abyssals by jumping on their heads.**

Things were not going well. Kure had dispatched a small force of shipgirls to catch what they had been told had been two heavy cruisers and four destroyers. It was not until they spotted the Abyssals - and thus, the Abyssals spotted them - that they realized that the two heavy cruisers were, in fact, a pair of Re-class battleships.

"Goddammit, I am going to _strangle_ those pukes in intelligence!" Hyuuga snapped as she cowered behind a large rock, cradling her scorched shoulder. A large rock that was getting steadily shot to pieces by the two battleships. "This is the third time this year that this shit has happened!"

"Tell me about it," Suzuya agreed. "It's a good thing Kirishima isn't here, this might have triggered something."

The two shipgirls relaxed slightly as the fire from the Abyssal slacked off - until Hyuuga poked her gun turrets out from behind the rock and fired off a salvo, sending the Abyssal screeching back.

"Tch, these things never learn," Hyuuga sneered as fire continued to chip away at the rock.

"You say that like its a bad thing," Suzuya retorted. "We'd have been overrun a long time ago if it kept attacking my side. I only have so many torpedoes."

"How many do you have?" Hyuuga asked.

"Eight. One more pass, maybe two, and I'm out, and then we're dead."

A large chunk of rock falling between them underscored the point that even if Suzuya didn't run out of torpedoes, the rock they were hiding behind was getting awfully small. Something had to be done, and fast.

"Yo, Hyuuga, how far away is that Abyssal?" Suzuya asked, rubbing her chin in thought.

"Not far. Why?"

In lieu of answer, Suzuya stuck her head out from behind the rock, framing the Abyssal with her hands. "Hmm, gonna be a little tight," she muttered to herself. "Hyuuga. Put your foot on my hand, I'm going to throw you into the air. Make sure you land on that thing's head, okay?"

Hyuuga shot the heavy cruiser an "are-you-for-cereal" face.

"Psh, I've practiced this with Fuso, and you're not that much heavier than her," Suzuya scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Look, it's this or hope we can evade that thing when our cover crumbles."

The ominous crack snaking up the back of the rock merely underscored her point. Sighing, Hyuuga stepped onto Suzuya's cupped hands, jumping right as the heavy cruiser heaved skyward.

For a moment, the battleship hung at the top of the parabola. It was nice, floating in the air like that. And then she was falling, and she wasn't going to make it.

 _'Shit! Just a little bit forward-'_

In a stroke of luck, the unsuspecting Abyssal moved forward, presumably for another pass at the flanks. Unfortunately for it, that also put it right under Hyuuga's trajectory.

"Yes!" Suzuya shouted, pumping her fist at the very loud crunch. "Hyuuga, we did it! Come one, let's meet up with-"

The heavy cruiser's celebration was cut off when she realized Hyuuga's legs were half-sunk into the water.

"I, uh, I think I broke my shoes with that," Hyuuga said, slightly dazed.

Suzuya groaned and held her head in her hands before pulling out a length of rope and tossing it to the battleship. "Grab on, I'll tow you back."


	50. Rule 132

**Rule 132. Whoever is the idiot who keeps giving Hibiki vodka please stop she's only a child.**

Once again, O'Bannon's bar was host to several shipgirls, all looking to get shit-faced drunk in the name of competition. Much like the last time, Tirpitz and Iowa were sitting at one table, talking smack at each other. Unlike last time, however, there were some new faces: Marat, quietly smirking at everyone in the room; Strasbourg, doing a very good sneer; and Gorizia, busily munching on bread and cheese.

"Where the _fuck_ is Musashi?" Iowa finally snapped, pounding on the table. "We can't start this shit without her! Besides, we never finished the competition we had last time."

"You mean her taking pity on your shit-faced state and conceding?" Tirpitz teased.

"Ah, I don't wanna fucking hear it, Ms. 'I-was-puking-in-the-toilet-by-then'."

Tirpitz flushed as the rest of the patrons erupted into laughter.

"As amusing as it is to see the Kraut humiliated, Iowa has a point," Marat said as her laughter subsided. "Where is she? It's not like her to be late."

The other ships present all stared at her in surprise and suspicion. "'Ow would you know?" Strasbourg replied. "You live on ze ozzer side of ze world from her!"

"We met on IRC a few days ago," Marat replied, looking suddenly pensive. "Come to think of it, she mentioned she was bringing a 'surprise' with her today."

Before anyone else could reply, the door burst in, allowing Musashi to stride in, a confident smirk on her face. To the surprise of everyone, though, following behind her like a remora following a great white shark was a grey-haired destroyer girl.

"Musashi?" Marat stated hesitantly. "What's with the destroyer?"

"Hey, everyone, slight change of plans," Musashi replied, rubbing the back of her head. "I decided it wouldn't be fair if I participated again, so Hibiki here is going to be taking my place."

For a moment there was silence, before all five ships burst out laughing.

"Hon hon hon hon hon!" Strasbourg cackled. "You mean to say zis... child shall be competing with us?"

"Jesus, Musashi, you do know the legal drinking age is 21 in the US?" Iowa added.

"Ah, whatever," Gorizia said as she polished off the last of her food. "If Musashi wants to give up, that's her prerogative."

Throughout this, Hibiki did not speak or change her expression, instead going up to the table and sitting in one of the chairs, looking comically undersized.

"Da, let's do this," she said as O'Bannon brought out the drinks. Iowa and Marat's faces fell into identical expressions of panicked horror, but it was too late to back out. Pride demanded that they stay in.

~o~

Two hours later, Musashi smirked around a glass of very good Californian craft beer as she watched the ongoing drinking contest. Strasbourg had been the first to go, and was even now snoring on the table. Tirpitz had followed shortly after, and from the sounds was busy worshipping the porcelain god. Even Iowa had been forced to drop out, O'Bannon ensuring that she would not get free and wreak havoc again, leaving the battleship chained up to a corner of the bar, muttering drunken invectives.

The only three left were Marat, Gorizia, and Hibiki, and the former two were flagging. Badly.

"Good strategy on Gorizia's part, but it doesn't look like she's gonna outmatch Marat and Hibiki's natural resistance," O'Bannon observed. "How'd Hibiki get that resistance, anyway?"

"I honestly have no idea," Musashi said, still grinning, as Gorizia slumped to the ground. "Sometimes I think she burns alcohol instead of oil in her boilers."

"Well, whatever the case, unless she completely shits the bed in the next five minutes, it looks like she's won." Not two seconds after that, Marat began to slide out of her chair. "Aaaaand she's gone. Hibiki takes this."

All the while, Hibiki's expression still hadn't changed, aside from a bit of blush on her cheeks.

"Ah, that was fun," she said in her usual monotone. "We have the Americans coming over next week, right? We should throw them a welcoming party."

Musashi's grin, somehow, got even wider. "I like the way you think, Hibiki."


	51. Rule 134

**Rule 134. No shipgirl is allowed to go to Las Vegas.**

"No."

Yukikaze gave an adorable pout, which didn't faze Admiral Goto in the slightest. "But, Admiral, it's for official business!"

Goto gave her a flat stare that just _screamed_ 'Not buying it'. "What kind of 'official business' requires a chaperone? And a male one, at that?"

The U.S. Marine sitting in the other chair jolted as he realized he was being addressed. "We're, uh, actually testing her luck, seeing if it works outside of combat situations. It could help with the success rate of summonings, for instance. And, well, Vegas. Don't want a young girl like her running around unsupervised. The US government is already bending over backwards to have Nevada let her onto the casino floors."

Admiral Goto's eyes narrowed as he tried to mentally poke holes in the argument, his face morphing into an outright scowl as he couldn't. "The answer is still no."

"Oh, come on, Admiral!" Yukikaze fired back. "I wanna see Vegas! I wanna go visit all the casinos, and try all the games, and see all the cool people! Oh, and I wanna see King Arthur!"

"Uh, King Arthur doesn't live in Las Vegas..." the marine tried to interject, but Goto cut him off.

"No means no, Yukikaze."

"Vegas!"

"No!"

The marine sighed as Goto and Yukikaze rapidly devolved into a back and forth shouting match. Swiping a few times on his phone, he pulled up his orders, scrolling down to the bottom.

"Um, guys?" he said.

"WHAT?!" Goto and Yukikaze snapped at him simultaneously.

"Uh, well, these are the orders I was given." Holding out the phone, he tapped the bottom of the screen. "And, uh, these are the people who signed off on it."

Goto's eyes widened as he read the names, while Yukikaze remained clueless. "That's- It's-!" Groaning, he let his head thump on his desk.

"Fine," he said around his desk. "She can go. Damn politicians..."

~o~

Three days later, Goto met a beaming Yukikaze at the pierside, her frazzled chaperone next to her.

"How bad?" the Japanese admiral asked.

"Well, Nevada has banned all shipgirls from the state, and I think at least a few of the casinos were put out of business," the marine said. "On the plus side, the Diet should be forwarding a nice financial windfall your way."

Goto quirked an eyebrow at that. The Diet was notoriously tight-fisted with money. "How much are we talking about here?"

"About... 27 billion yen?" the marine muttered to himself. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Huh," Goto muttered to himself. "Well, _that_ definitely covers Yamato and Musashi's operational costs for the foreseeable future. They'll be happy to stretch their legs."

" _Monthly_ , sir."

Goto promptly choked on own his spit. "What?!"

"About 27 billion yen," the marine clarified. "Monthly. For the next two years."

For a moment, Goto could only stare at the two in horror. "Just... just _how many_ casinos went out of business?"

"About a third of Las Vegas, give or take? Yukikaze now technically _owns_ CityCentre, the Bellagio and the Venetian Macau as well. Made a detour there on the way back."


	52. Rule 137

**Rule 137. The pillars are to be removed from the base immediately!  
**  
Yavuz Sultan Selim, ex-Goeben, yawned as she sat up in bed. It had been a long day of swatting light cruisers and destroyers in the Aegean, and the ex-German battlecruiser had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Hauling herself out of bed, she grabbed her toiletries and opened the door to go take a shower.

Only to stare at the bone-white Corinthian pillar standing right outside her door.

"What in the heck?" she muttered. Rapping her knuckles on the pillar, she noted that it was actually stone, rather than hollow plastic or something. Shrugging, she raised her foot and kicked it square in the center, causing it to topple over and shatter into several large pieces. Stepping over the rubble, she sighed as she heard the shouts of the Scrap Iron Flotilla and the two Italian torpedo-boats that had been assigned to them. The pillars blocking the doors to their rooms were the obvious cause.

"For fuck's sake..." Yavuz groaned as she went to free her charges.

~o~

Once the destroyers and torpedo boats were freed, the Aegean Force made their way through the base, freeing their Admiral in the process. The pillars were everywhere, blocking every door and outright encircling the repair shops and fuel tanks.

As Yavuz shoved aside another pillar, she heard Voyager grumble behind her.

"Swear to God, when I find whoever did this-"

"Don't bother," Yavuz replied without even looking back. "I know who did this, and she's out of your weight class."

"Oh?" Saggittario said to Waterhen. "Well, who is it, then?"

"Over here, Saggittario," Yavuz said, waving her hand. "And to answer your question, when I find Averoff, I'm going to _strangle_ her. This is exactly the sort of crap she likes to pull. Freaking Greek nationalist..."

There was a rustling of leaves and a high-pitched screaming. Yavuz and the lighter ships whirled around to see Averoff lying on the ground, the armored cruiser's rear sticking up in the air and leaves and branches sticking out of her twitching form.

"Owowowowowow..." Georgios Averoff. "Of all the times for that branch to break."

A chill ran down Averoff's spine, and slowly, she turned her head, face frozen in a rictus smile and dripping with a cold sweat. Behind her stood Yavuz, still in her sleep clothes but looking no less scary for it and cracking her knuckles.

"Oh, Averoff," she said sweetly. "It seems you need a reminder on how to _act your age._ "

As the battlecruiser laid into the armored cruiser, Lupo leaned over to Stuart and whispered in her ear.

"Aren't you all only a few years younger than Averoff?"

"Don't remind me," the destroyer leader muttered.


	53. Rule 139

**Rule 139. The crochet club application is denied. The laugh Hosho gave when she saw it will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.**

"Your tea, Admiral."

"Thanks, Hosho," Admiral Goto absentmindedly replied, not looking up from his paperwork.

"If I may ask, Admiral," the carrier said. "What are you working on? And why can't you do it in your office?"

"Tama dragged in another Abyssal," Goto replied. "They're still cleaning up. As for what I'm working on-"

Shifting the paper to the completed stack, Goto pulled a fresh sheet off the uncompleted stack. "Well, right now I'm looking over an application for a crochet club. Looks like it's all in order, so-"

"A crochet club, huh? Heheheheheheheheheh."

Admiral Goto looked up with some concern as he heard Hosho break out into an uncharacteristic low chuckle. He began sweating when he noticed a malevolent, black-and-red aura manifesting over the motherly shipgirl.

"Heheheh. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The aura thickened into a full-on miasma blanketing the entire tea shop. A too-wide grin had spread over Hosho's face as she tilted her head back and curled her hands up into claws, laughing a laugh of madness that echoed throughout the building. Behind her, Goto could've sworn he could see the grinning face of an oni, its arms reaching out through some sort of dark portal to wrap themselves around Hosho's shoulders. And then she turned her face towards him, head lolling bonelessly on her neck.

Admiral Goto, a thirty-year veteran of the Naval Self-Defense Forces, who had fought Somali and Malay pirates and directed the JMSDF from the frontlines in the early days of the Abyssal War, had to fight to keep his bladder under control. Hosho's eyes, normally a warm brown, were now bright red all around, with no discernable pupils and leaking a flame-like energy. He tried to scoot back as Hosho gripped his cheeks and looked him dead in the eye, but even under normal circumstances the carrier's grip would've been too much.

"Let me tell you something, Admiral," Hosho said in a _far_ too even voice. "If you approve that form - nay, if your pen even touches that paper - I will kill myself. And when my tainted spirit finds its destination, I will topple the master of that dark place. From my black throne, I will lash together a machine of bone and blood, and fueled by my hatred for that... activity, this fear engine will bore a hole between this world and that one."

Admiral Goto felt tears begin to flow from his eyes, his brain screaming for him to look away. The oni was fully out, its feet on the floor and its arms around Hosho's waist. And yet, he could not tear his eyes away.

"When it begins, you will hear the sound of children screaming - as if from a great distance. A smoking orb of _nothing_ will grow above your bed, and from it will emerge a thousand starving crows. As I slip through the widening maw in my new form, you will catch only a glimpse of my radiance before you are incinerated. Then, as tears of bubbling pitch stream down my face, my dark work will begin."

"I will open one of my six mouths, and sing the song that ends the Earth."

"Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes!" Goto screamed as his voice returned to him. "Ohgodyes! Yes, Master!"

Suddenly, the miasma, the oni, all of it disappeared, leaving only a smiling Hosho standing over him, her eyes brown.

"Great!" she chirped, clapping her hands as she stood upright again. "I'm glad we had this talk."

As Hosho walked away, humming to herself, Goto simply sat there, wondering if it was all just a hallucination brought on by stress and overwork. He glanced at the crochet club application - and froze as he felt a piercing stare at his back. Slowly, he turned to see Hosho glaring at him, one eye red. The Admiral gulped audibly, before grabbing the application, crumpling it up, and throwing it into the nearest garbage can.

 **AN: Credit to Penny Arcade for Hosho's speech.**


	54. Rule 141

**Rule 141. Any more crazy stunts with odd or "extreme" foods will be met with punishment.**

"Alright, show your cards," Yorktown drawled, leaning back in her chair.

Essex, San Francisco, Hornet, and Washington all dropped their hands to the table.

"Pair of jacks, pair of nines, pair of sevens and fours, and a straight. Hornet wins."

The shipgirls around the packing crate groaned as Hornet raked in the poker chips, grinning.

"Seriously, how does she keep doing that," San Francisco groaned.

"Luck, and skill," Hornet replied, wagging her finger. "Too bad Enterprise isn't here, that would've been a nice challenge. Where is she, anyway?"

"Picking up a package," Yorktown replied, collecting the cards and beginning the shuffling. "She should be back soon, so you'll get your challenge."

Hornet nodded, and dealing proceeded apace. They were on the first round of betting when Enterprise walked in, a bag in hand.

"Hey, everybody!" Enterprise chirped. "I just got my package and I want to share it with you all!"

Aside from Yorktown, the girls appropriately oohed and aahed, the other carrier merely paling in realization.

"So, what is it?" Washington said. "Don't keep us in suspense here."

Reaching into the bag, Enterprise pulled out... something. "Ta-da!" she announced, holding up some orange... spiky... fruit thing, encased in plastic. "Durian! With all the damage the Abyssals have done to Southeast Asia, it wasn't heasy to get one, but it's here!"

"Enterprise," Yorktown started as her sister began to tear off the plastic wrap. "Don't you dare. Don't you fucking-!"

Too late. The plastic wrap was removed, and every shipgirl in the room recoiled as the smell assaulted their nostrils.

"Oh my god that is just _rank!"_ Essex groaned.

"Can't... breathe..." Hornet gasped, straining for something.

"Enterprise... sister... get that _thing_ out of our sight before I toss it out and you with it," Yorktown growled.

~o~

"I think I'll try these "Rocky Mountain Oysters", please," Fuso said, handing the menu back to the waitress.

Amsterdam, the Fuso sisters' chaperone/tour guide, looked at her dubiously. "You do know what those are, right?"

"They're oysters, right? I love fried oysters!"

Amsterdam stared at the battleship for one more second before sighing. "Oh well, your funeral."

Fifteen minutes later, a feminine shriek of "THEY'RE _WHAT_?!" echoed out onto the San Francisco street.

~o~

Manchester dubiously eyed the innocuous, albeit very round, tin sitting in front of her. "So, this is surstromming, huh? And it's..."

"Fermented herring," Gotland confirmed.

"Isn't that, like, rotten or something?"

The aviation cruiser rolled here eyes. "Trust me, this is not the worst thing we Nordics eat. You should see some of the concoctions Iceland has produced."

"Alright then," Manchester sighed, gripping the pull-out tab. "In for a penny..."

The light cruiser yanked off the tin cover, and immediately regretted it as her sinuses were invaded by a tremendous smell of rotten. Pinching her nose, Manchester gingerly scooped out some of the fish with her spoon, put it in her mouth, and chewed, her expression morphing from shock to surprise and then to disgust.

"Ugh," she spat as she swallowed heavily. "Give me that bottle of gin already, I need to wash this shit down."

 **AN: In case you were wondering, Rocky Mountain Oysters are fried bull testicles.**


	55. Rule 147

**Rule 147. Attempts to "Write dramatically" are hereby forbidden. Maintenance is tired of finding pens lodged in the walls.**

Kirishima scratched steadily away at a mission report, her hand doing impressive flourishes with the pen as she did so. Loops, twirls, and all manner of acrobatics were performed, and as the battleship finished up the last word, she drew her pen straight out to her right as fast as she could.

Sadly, her fingers, worn from the writing, slipped _just_ a tad, causing the whole of her 136,000 horsepower to act on the pen.

The result was predictable, the writing implement flying out of her grip and completely lodging itself into the wall, joining over a dozen brethren similarly stuck.

"Oops, heh heh," Kirishima said, embarrassed. Pulling out a small cardboard box out of when of her desk drawers, she pulled out another pen and set to work making sure the report was sound. After someone had sent in a mission report that simply said "Oops.", Admiral Goto had been cracking down on proper report-writing. A pain for the light cruisers, but for Kirishima it meant no change. She had standards when it came to writing, dammit!

Satisfied that everything was in order, the bespectacled shipgirl straightened out the stack of papers, and got up to go deliver them to Ooyodo. However, the sound of cracking wood drew her attention.

"Where is that coming from?" she wondered, glancing around the room. Her eyes fell on the wall stuck full of pens, noting the massive spiderweb crack that ran between each and every hole left by a pen. A crack that was rapidly spreading up to the ceiling.

Glancing up, Kirishima saw the crack spreading rapidly over the plaster, as well as hear the ominous sound of the room creaking.

"Uh oh-" was all she got out before the entire structure collapsed on her, dumping not only the remnants of the ceiling on her, but also the contents of Mutsu's room, including Mutsu herself.

"Owowowowowow," the other battleship whined as she rubbed her somewhat bruised posterior. "What the heck happened? At least the whole building didn't collapse."

As if in response, the entire structure began creaking ominously.

"Oh boy. I think we'd better evacuate."

~o~

"So, what did you want to show me, Akatsuki?" Tenryuu asked as she leaned on the destroyer's chair.

"Kirishima has this really cool trick she does when she's writing!" Akatsuki answered. "And since a lady needs good handwriting, and Kirishima has the best calligraphy of any of us, I thought this might help."

As Akatsuki touched the tip of her pen to the paper in front of her, Tenryuu chuckled and let a warm smile spread across her face. It was always nice to see her charges trying so earnestly. Distracted, the light cruiser missed the exact moment when the pen zipped by her ear, spearing one of her floating mechanical... things (seriously, what are those) and pinning it to the rear wall.

"I think," Tenryuu said to a pale, shaking Akatsuki. "That you shouldn't try that trick anymore.


	56. Rule 148

**Rule 148. Tenryuu is to stop using the admiral's office to hide from Tatsuta.**

Admiral Goto walked into the antechamber of his office where Ooyodo was still working. Several empty bento told him that the light cruiser had already eaten lunch.

"Good afternoon, Admiral," she said as he walked by her desk. "Lunch was good, I hope?"

"Yes, it was," he replied. "Sometimes, the soul just needs a little ramen."

Opening the door, Goto doffed his hat and placed it on the coatrack, before heading to his desk, loosening his jacket as he-

Wait.

Goto froze as he remembered that he didn't have a coat rack in his office. Turning around, he saw Tenryuu standing next to the doorway, examining his hat with considerable interest.

"Tenryuu," he said slowly. "What are you doing in my office?"

"Oh, hey, Admiral," the light cruiser casually replied as she pulled a loose hair out of the hat, pocketing it. "Tatsuta's trying to get me in that damn black widow dress again. She'll calm down in a few hours, so I hope you don't mind if I hang out here while I wait."

"If you need to hide, why my office of all places?" he demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Eh, for some reason she's allergic to this place. And I do mean literally allergic." Pulling out her iPhone and a box of Pocky, she began tapping away at the screen, one of the snacks dangling from her mouth.

For a few minutes, the two simply stood there at an impasse. Finally, Admiral Goto walked past Tenryuu and poked his head out the door.

"Ooyodo, I have an intruder in my office. Would you mind removing her, please?"

Before Ooyodo could respond, Tenryuu pulled a 180 and fell to her knees, clutching at Admiral Goto's leg. "Please! Let me stay! I'll do anything you want, anything!"

Goto glanced down at the prostrated light cruiser, his eyes glinting.

"Anything, you say?" he smirked evilly.

Tenryuu nodded.

~o~

Tatsuta was walking down the corridors of Yokosuka when she saw her sister get hurled out of a door. Tenryuu hit the floor, rolled, and slammed into the wall. She ended up lying on her shoulders on the floor, legs splayed out over her head. Attached to her forehead with tape was a note. It read, "Send me pictures. -G"

Smiling, Tatsuta roused her sister, and took a sadistic pleasure at the look on her face when she held up the dress.

"I told you I'd get you in it!" she said sing-song.


	57. Rule 151

**Rule 151. "We found it" is not a valid explanation.**

"Cochino..." Admiral Briggs groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why do you have a functional cannon in your room?"

"Oh, this?" the submarine said from where she was cleaning off centuries' worth of barnacles and other marine growth. "I found it while diving yesterday. Bribed Kearsarge into hauling it up for me."

"Is it functional?" He tensed, dreading the answer.

"Not yet it isn't."

"Then it stays that way."

~o~

"Lupo..." Admiral Bartolomeo groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Where did you get more narcotics than I'm pretty sure are in the whole city of Naples?"

"Oh, so that's what they are!" Italy's luckiest - and craziest - shipgirl exclaimed, thumping a fist into her hand. "I just found all this while I was cruising from Venice to Genoa. Thought it looked interesting."

"Why were you- No, I don't want to know," Bartolomeo decided. "Anyway, all of this needs to be disposed of. By _trained professionals."_

"Eh, fine," Lupo replied, shrugging. "I mean, I already dumped this bag into today's lunch."

Admiral Bartolomeo's eyes widened as the letters "PCP" proudly announced themselves in red marker.

~o~

"Nagato..." Admiral Goto groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why is there a Wo-class carrier in your quarters?"

"I found her, all alone and crying on my way back from the mission!" Nagato replied eagerly. "Can I keep her? Pleeeeeeeeease?"

"Dammit, Nagato, we've been over this. You can't just bring Abyssals home with you just because they give you puppy-dog eyes."

"What about Hoppo-chan, then?" Nagato challenged. The girl in question looked up at the mention of her name, but quickly went back to recreating Operation Linebacker with her toy planes.

"She had the decency to explicitly ask for political asylum," Goto countered. "Plus she's a Princess-class Abyssal. Now, are you going to let the carrier go, or do I need to send her to Yubari for study?"

Nagato paled. "I'll release her, no problem," the flustered battleship replied, grabbing Wo by the arm and ushering her out.

~o~

"Molotov..." Admiral Kaidanovsky groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Where did you get the silver foxes?"

"I found them on one of my hikes," the cruiser replied, petting one of the animals. "Don't worry, they're tame!"

As if on cue, the fox she was petting turned around and sank its teeth into her wrist.

"Okay, there are still a few behavioral kinks to be worked out, but soon we can all have pets!" Molotov chirped.

Admiral Kaidanovsky reached for a hip flask and took a deep swig. This was entirely too much to deal with sober. "No. The foxes go back."

"But that's not fair!" Molotov whined. "Kalinin has her pet bear and I don't see you getting on her case about it!"

"WHAT?!"

~o~

"U-81..." Admiral Hartmann groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Where did you get those flags?"

The U-boat glanced at the Canadian and Danish flag she'd pilfered off of Hans Island. "I found them."

Admiral Hartmann opened his mouth to object- and closed it with a click. "Just- Just put them back already before the Canadians show up."

The sound of children screaming, as if from a great distance, wafted through the air. Admiral and U-boat looked out the window to see several U-boats being chased by Canadian frigates wielding hockey sticks.

"Never mind!" Hartmann hastily amended. "Just get it back to them!"

~o~

"Dunkerque..." Mogador groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "How did you come by what looks like a few hundred wardrobes' worth of women's underwear?"

"I found it," the fast battleship proudly replied. "In Portsmouth."

"So you stole it from the Limeys," Mogador deduced, dropping her head in her hands.

"Hmph! Zey had it coming."

The wall suddenly cracked and splintered before flying apart. In strode Royal Oak, looking absolutely livid. "Alright, ya little pervert! I'm gonna slap you silly!"

"Mogador-" Dunkerque began, only to see that the destroyer had de-assed the area with quickness. Alone and helpless, she turned back to the thunderous, knuckle-cracking form of Royal Oak.

"Merde."

~o~

"Is that the Mona Lisa?" Yavuz wondered as she glanced into the room Stuart shared with Vampire, Voyager, Vendetta, and Waterhen shared.

"We found it," Stuart said simply. "That's our story and we're sticking to it. Just found it lying around somewhere."

Yavuz nodded. Clearly, the girls had picked up more than just their dress sense from the British squaddies they'd supplied during the war. "Okay, just be sure to put it back once the French apologize, okay?"


	58. Rule 157

**Rule 157. O'Bannon and Ghurka are to stop collaborating on pranks. We don't know how they stole a** ** _house,_** **but...**

"GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

O'Bannon sighed heavily as one of her patrons, a heavyset man with a 70s-style porn 'stache thumped his glass down on the bar hard enough to crack it. Again.

"Hey, girlie!" he shouted, voice only slightly slurred by his previous drinks. "Get me another round!"

Wordlessly, O'Bannon pulled down the bottle of gin and poured another shot. The man took a swig, before a passing woman caught his attention. Grinning, he reached over and patted her butt, causing her to flush and spin around and start yelling at him.

The door opened, allowing in another patron, one far more welcome for the American destroyer.

"Ghurka, glad you could make it!" she called.

"After trying some of your IPA selection? Hell yes I'm making it!" As O'Bannon started pouring a glass for Ghurka, the fellow destroyer glanced at the patron next to her, who was still grinning even after the woman he'd harassed stomped off in a huff. "So, why haven't you kicked that jackass out yet?"

"He's not doing any harm, he's just being an obnoxious jackass," O'Bannon grumbled as she handed over the beer. "I'd be a pretty destitute bar owner if I kicked out everyone who was an obnoxious jackass."

"Fair enough," Ghurka replied, sipping at her beer. The Tribal-class destroyer grinned as a thought came to her. "Though if you want some retribution, I have a few... ideas."

O'Bannon grinned in response. "I'm listening."

~o~

Brian Adams stumbled down the street as he walked home from the bus station. Tonight had been a good night, with good drink and plenty of pretty ladies to appreciate. And it was next to the bus station! Honestly, sometimes finding a good bar was like finding a good apartment.

Staggering up to his door, he fished out the keys, and fumbled around trying to fit them into the lock. Eventually, he did so, and opened the door, heading upstairs. His house was small, but he lived alone, so that was fine.

Shucking down to his underwear, he collapsed into bed, not bothering with anything else. His thoughts were filled with pretty women as he fell asleep.

The next morning, he groaned as the sun tried to burn out his retinas. Who was the idiot who opened his curtains?! Blearily, he opened his eyes, and blinked at the sight of the house behind his. What in the-

Eyes widened and uncaring about the sun, he looked around his bed. His house was _gone_ , only the foundation and his bed remaining. The neighbors had gathered around and were pointing and taking pictures, and one seemed to be calling the police. And it was at that moment that Brian Adams realized he was still in his underwear.

~o~

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

O'Bannon and Ghurka tilted their heads, cupping a hand over their ears.

"Hark! The dulcet tones of a man with no house!" O'Bannon said, grinning.

"Verily! It appears that our jest was quite well received!" Ghurka agreed, grinning just as wide.

Bumping their fists, they leaned back on the roof of Brian Adams' house. "Y'know, I feel like we're forgetting something."

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU GIRLS DO?!" Admiral Cunningham shouted from the airfield they were on.


	59. Rule 159

**Rule 159. Introduction of any shipgirls to such sites as , Pixiv, Tumblr, and other such websites is forbidden.**

"So, what seems to be the problem?" King George V said as she walked up to the door.

"Shakespeare's been in there for three days!" Swordfish exclaimed.

"We don't think she's eaten or slept that whole time!" Sealion added.

"And we've tried breaking down the door!" Sterlet finished.

"I see. Well, you were right to call me," King George V replied, nodding. Rearing up her leg, she snapped a side kick at the door. The wooden door splintered and shattered, and the dresser blocking it went flying. The battleship stomped into the room and marched up to the submarine, who was tapping furiously at her keyboard and growling.

"I'll show them," she snarled. "I'll show them all..."

"Alright, I think that's enough for you," King George V said blandly as she lifted the submarine out of her chair by the armpits.

"Noooooo!" Shakespeare shrieked, arms flailing for the computer. "I need to show those- those _Neanderthals_ what _real_ literature is! And they still haven't admitted that the Harry/Hermione ship is fucking _non-canon!_ "

~o~

"Hey, Usugumo, come here!"

The destroyer in question looked up from her manga and walked over to where her sister Shinonome was sitting at the computer. "What's up?"

"Look, I found this site, and it's got tons of fanart! I was just about to look at Touhou fanart, want to join me?" her more excitable sister said.

Usugumo considered for a second before shrugging. "Sure. They're fun games."

Grinning, Shinonome typed in "Touhou" and hit enter. The two destroyers properly oohed and aahed at the wall of thumbnails, though one at the bottom caught their attention.

"What is that of..." Shinonome muttered as she clicked on it. The image loaded up, and both destroyers immediately froze and flushed a deep red.

"'Sup, thundercunts!" Murakumo shouted as she threw the door open. When she got no answer, she glanced over to her two sisters and the red flush on their necks.

"Oh, yeah, I turned off the 18+ filter when I last visited," she observed blandly, as if talking about the weather. Walking over to the rooms minifridge, she took out a juicebox and started towards the door. "Well, enjoy. I won't tell anyone." With a wink, she left.

For a moment, all was silent, before Usugumo let out a noise like a deflating tire.

~o~

"So, what site did you say they found, again?" Admiral Holloway said as he looked out the window at the two crowds chanting at one another down below.

"Tumblr, Admiral," Philippine Sea said, flipping through a stack of papers. "From what I can tell, one group got into the social justice crowd there."

Admiral Holloway twitched slightly as he took in the sea of "Down with CIS!" and "Black Lives Matter!" and "Stop Cultural Appropriation!" signs. "Yes, I can see that."

"The other side," the carrier continued, flipping through more papers. "Seems to be a bunch of fandom nerds. They're in it for the shipping and porn."

Holloway shifted his gaze to the other side and the plethora of merchandise from a half dozen shows. "Also pretty clear. So, what precipitated this?"

"I've traced the comment chain, and it started with Oakland pointing out that one "Blake Belladonna" is canonically light-skinned when Pasadena posted a picture of said character drawn with dark skin."

Holloway sighed explosively, letting his head thunk against the glass. "Of all the fucking- Hum, looks like the Steven Universe fans are trying to unite both sides."

Philippine Sea smirked. "I wish them good luck. Neither side likes them."

Holloway winced as both groups charged the small knot of shipgirls in Steven Universe cosplay. "Well, considering that the lightest of them is Guam, I think they're gonna be fine."


	60. Rule 163

**Rule 163. Shipgirls are no longer allowed to quote memes.**

Admiral Holloway hummed happily to himself. Today... just felt like a good day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, his coffee was better than usual, and he hadn't been accosted by any of his shipgirls on the way to work. The pills he had been prescribed helped, too.

His good mood evaporated instantly when he saw Bunker Hill sitting in his office looking rather sleep-deprived. The fleet carrier was one of the more independent of the Essex class, and fiercely refused help from the human officers. For her to be in his office...

"Oh, hey Admiral," she muttered as he walked in, putting down the magazine she had been attempting to read. "Don't worry, there's no fire. I just needed to get away from the fairies for a while."

Holloway frowned. "Why would you need to get away from the fairies?"

"Uh, Franklin was playing some Starcraft II last night, and she quoted a meme. Don't ask me to repeat it. Unfortunately, one of her fairies heard it, and decided he liked it. And now all of them are repeating it." She groaned and slumped down on the table, crocodile tears flowing from her eyes. "They are _incessant."_

Holloway could feel a headache coming on. The absolute last thing he needed was his carriers out of commission due to sleep deprivation. "Please tell me this isn't going to be a long-term thing," he pleaded.

"They're fairies," Bunker Hill waved dismissively. "They get bored quickly with this sort of thing. As long as they don't hear any more memes before they forget, it'll only take a few days."

Admiral Holloway breathed a sigh of relief, before frowning as he heard something coming from his office. Walking up to the door and opening it, he scanned the room but didn't see anything. The noise was getting louder, though, and seemed to be coming from outside. Opening the window, he stuck his head out - and the blood promptly drained from his face.

"Nyanyanya n-nyanyanya n-n-nyanyanyanyanya!"

His head slowly turned as he tracked a fairy-piloted Avenger painted to look like a Pop-tart and trailing a rainbow target banner, a steady stream of "nyans" coming from speakers slung under the bomb bay.

"Okay, that's gonna get really old really fast," Bunker Hill remarked from behind him.

There was a bang from behind the two, and they turned around to see Langley, Saratoga, and Princeton at the door, panting, red-faced, and with bags under their eyes and thunderous expressions. Dangling by her collar from Lexington's grip was a sheepish-looking Oakland.

"Say it," Langley growled murderously.

"Hey, Admiral," Oakland said nervously. "I, uh, might have left my laptop where the fairies could get to it. On, uh, knowyourmeme."

"Goddammit, Oakland," Bunker Hill groaned, slapping her forehead. Admiral Holloway didn't respond. The small army of fairies, all dancing to a surprisingly good rendition of "Gangnam Style" held his attention as he felt something snap inside him.

~o~

Maddox hummed happily as she walked back from taking a shower. Her sisters might not like baths, but a good shower always felt nice! Opening the door to the dorm room she shared with three of her sisters, she blinked at the gaping hole that had once been the outer wall. Squinting, she traced the trajectory with her fingers, and ended up pointing at the far wall, currently blocked by the door. The destroyer shut the door to reveal Oakland embedded upside-down and back-first in the wall.

"Hey, kid, you mind helping me down?" the light cruiser asked with a sheepish grin. "I kinda don't have enough leverage to get down myself."


	61. Rule 165

**Rule 165. Koi ponds are not public fishing areas.**

Kongo sat on the edge of a small deck, her shoes and stockings in a pile next to her so she could dip her feet into the pond. A fishing pole rested in her hands, some leftover bread from the cafeteria on the end of the line, and a small thermos of black tea and packet of store-bought mochi sat on her other side. The battleship did not actually expect to catch anything; this was just an excuse for peace and quiet, and an opportunity to give advice to anyone who wanted it.

Sh reached for a piece of mochi, and popped it in her mouth, adjusting the line slightly. As she did so, her ears twitched slightly at the sound of footsteps on the wooden deck. She heard and felt more than saw a shipgirl sit down next to her, and kept her attention on the fishing.

After a few moments, the newcomer spoke up. "The dating sims were mean, Kongo."

"I didn't expect you to actually use them as a model," Kongo replied placidly.

Ashigara was silent for a little longer before sighing. "God, I want a boyfriend... I'm not getting any younger, y'know? And I'm not getting any _better_ at it, either, that's what galls me. My record is two dates. Two! Some of the destroyers I mentor have done better than me."

Kongo gave a noncommittal grunt.

"I just- I can be self-aware. What I'm doing isn't working. But for the life of me I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I mean, the loud declarations and physical possessiveness seem to work for you."

Kongo couldn't help it. She let out a light giggle.

"Hey!" Ashigara snapped, blushing. "D-Don't laugh at me! I'm serious here!"

With some effort, Kongo suppressed the giggles. "I-I'm sorry, it's just- You think that whole display is what got me Admiral Goto?"

"Uh, yes?" Ashigara answered, sounding puzzled.

"My dear girl," Kongo replied, patting Ashigara's head. "That whole display is just that - a display. It's there to let the other shipgirls, and Goto himself, know that he's mine, and off-limits. I didn't _start_ with that. No, I talked to him, became his friend, and then sprung a dinner date on him. Heh, you should've seen him when I showed up in that dress, he looked like a tomato. I knew I had him when I saw that reaction."

"So my advice? Go out and just talk to some guys. Get to know them, see if they're someone you want to date. And then ask them to something simple. No grand romantic gestures or anything like that. At the very least, it'll help you with your nervousness and subsequent overcompensation."

Ashigara immediately sputtered a denial and flushed even deeper red, only for Kongo to grin knowingly. "Oh, you think I didn't notice? I'm not quite as oblivious as your sisters, dear."

"I... I, uh..." Taking a deep breath, Ashigara slapped her cheeks and exhaled. "Thank you for this, Kongo. I'll keep it in mind."

"Good! I do think it'll help."

"That's all well and good," Admiral Goto ground out behind them, a vein throbbing on his forehead. "But the koi pond is not for fishing."


	62. Rule 171

**Rule 171. Abyssals are to be terminated on sight, not invited over for tea and crumpets!**

It was a surreal sight. The garden was abuzz with shipgirls, hiding behind bushes, in trees, under bridges, and in the pond. To Admiral Goto, who had spent most of the last two years keeping his eyes peeled for Kongo, they were all painfully obvious. That was Iku and Decchi in the pond, Zuikaku and Shokaku in the sakura tree, Kaga in the big oak, and Nachi, Tenryuu, Mikuma, Maya, Shimakaze, Katori, and Aoba scattered throughout the bushes. And, hello, was that a ground periscope? Yes, yes it was. Clearly, Kirishima, Hiei, and Haruna had learned from their elder sister.

And frankly, if he could see them, Kongo could too, and yet she didn't so much as twitch as she poured tea into a porcelain cup held by a dour Ru-class battleship, chatting animatedly with a Wo-class carrier, who for its part was looking quite interested in what Kongo was saying. A cake sat in the center of the small wooden table Kongo had procured from... somewhere, a third of it gone. Crumbs decorating small plates said loud and clear where it had gone. Still, that wasn't the disturbing part.

No, the disturbing part was the gaggle of destroyers running around, looking _absolutely goddamn adorable_. Abyssals were not supposed to be adorable, dammit!

As the tea party continued on, Admiral Goto felt his gaze drawn more and more to that cake. The deep brown cake looked astoundingly moist, even from a distance. The frosting was mirror-smooth, almost shining, and topped at regular intervals by artful chocolate flowers. It looked absolutely amazing. Starting, the Admiral became aware that he was drooling, and hastily wiped away the saliva.

When the destroyers started pulling out torpedoes and using them like toy swords, Admiral Goto decided that enough was enough.

"Ah, hello, Admiral," Kongo said absently as he landed on the grass, not even looking at him. "Would you like to join us? Ru-chan here made an _excellent_ cake. You simply _must_ try some."

"Kongo," Goto said as evenly as he could. "Why are you having tea with these Abyssals and not, y'know, shooting them?"

The two larger Abyssals shot him a flat glare that absolutely failed to make him flinch.

"Quite rude, Admiral, don't you think?" Kongo replied, placing her teacup down with a flat *clink*. "But I understand. Really, I do. And if they had done anything else when they came ashore in Yokosuka harbor, I would've shot them. But Ru-chan here brought the cake, and then Wo-chan made the offer for tea, and really, who was I to refuse cake and tea? Besides, these two have been an absolute _goldmine_ of intelligence."

Goto nodded. He wasn't _happy_ about this, but if Kongo wanted to mix business and pleasure, who was he to object? Besides, a carrier, a battleship, and a half-dozen DDs didn't matter all that much in the long run; he could let them go.

"Alright, Kongo. I'm going to trust you to handle this."

"Never fear, Admiral," Kongo replied airily, picking up her cup again. "I will not let anything disturb this party."

Both shipgirl and admiral blinked and looked towards the gate at the sound of stomping footsteps. Throwing the gate open with a bang, a steaming Nagato stormed in, Hoppo-chan tagging along behind her.

"KONGO!" the battleship shouted. "You had Abyssals over for tea and you didn't invite Hoppo-chan over?!"

"Apologies, Nagato," Kongo said placatingly, ignoring Admiral Goto facepalming and muttering something about priorities. "This was kind of a last-minute sort of thing. But please, feel free to sit down and join us!"


	63. Rule 174

**Rule 174. We are not building a trebuchet, onager, or any form of catapult to launch Musashi at our enemies.**

It was just another day at the office for Admiral Goto. Requisitions and other standard forms had been completed, and now he was looking at less... official reports from the NCOs and enlisted on base. They gossiped worse than rich housewives, and the shipgirls had a tendency to overlook them. All of which made them ideal for acting as inconspicuous minders; he'd just needed to get them to send that information to him rather than let the grapevine reach him a few days later.

 _'Huh, only two today,'_ he thought to himself. _'That's less than usual. What've we got?'_

The first report showed that Akashi had ordered a large quantity of wooden planks and an entire large fir tree. Which was... incredibly odd. The repair ship was trained to work with wood, but she tended to stick to metal. If that report was puzzling, the next was positively alarming. Several destroyers had been seen carrying 18" practice shells. Hastily booting up his computer, he checked the request forms he'd signed over the last few days. Sure enough, there was a request for 18" practice shells from Musashi staring him dead in the face. He also noticed a request - that he'd signed! - for the USS Kearsarge. The crane ship, not the carrier. The pieces were not fitting together, and that worried him.

"Ooyodo," he announced, standing up from his desk. "I'm going out. Hold the fort until I get back okay?"

"Yes, Admiral," the light cruiser replied, looking worried. "What's going on this time?"

"I don't know, Ooyodo," he sighed wearily. "And that worries me. A lot."

~o~

A quick check of Musashi's room and Akashi's workshop had confirmed that they were not there, which did not allay his worries in the slightest. Talking with the gate and harbor personnel confirmed that yes, the tree and Kearsarge had arrived, no they did not know where they were, exactly, but that they were headed for the abandoned naval air station, a relic of when the USS George Washington had been homeported here.

As he entered the abandoned naval air station, Admiral Goto heard an odd sound, like wheels squeaking. Turning around a building, he froze in place as he beheld an absolutely _massive_ trebuchet, a box hanging from the launching arm. Several destroyers - he could see Ooshio, Michishio, Yamagumo, and Asagumo - were busy wheeling it into place, Kearsarge and Akashi watching expectantly. And sitting in the sling was-

Goto broke into a dead sprint as the destroyers finished wheeling it into place, and grabbed the rope that held the movement arm in place. Because sitting in the sling was _Musashi._

 _"STOP!"_ he shouted, arm outstretched, but it was too late. The destroyers yanked out the firing pin, and the box came down, flinging the arm, and Musashi, into the air.

"YAHOOOOO!" Musashi cried out as she flew through the air on a graceful parabolic arc. With a loud crash, she landed feet first on the concrete tarmac, throwing up a huge cloud of dust in front of a cardboard Ru-class Abyssal that he'd overlooked. "M'okay! Gonna need to adjust it a bit, though!"

A loud cheer went out from the assembled destroyers, even Kasumi. Kearsarge and Akashi, for their part, gave each other a high-five. At least, until they saw Admiral Goto.

"A-Admiral!" Akashi stammered, causing the destroyers to turn around and see him. Their pale faces were quite gratifying. "Th-This isn't what it looks like!"

"Actually, it kind of is," Kearsarge corrected cheekily, grinning from ear to ear.

"What. Is. Going. On. Here." Goto ground out through gritted teeth.

"Uh, duh?" Kasumi cut in, ignoring her sisters' frantic, silent waves to _back the fuck down_. "We're building a trebuchet to launch Musashi at our enemies. Try to keep up, you shitty admiral."

The haughty attitude didn't last long as Admiral Goto loomed over her, a black aura flowing around him and his eyes glowing white. "Oh really?" he said, his voice an octave lower and _resonating_. "And whose idea was this?"

"It was mine, Admiral, so you can ease up on poor Kasumi here," Musashi said, placing a very firm hand on his shoulder.

The aura and the glowing eyes dissipated, allowing Kasumi to slump to the ground with tears in her eyes. "You do know that isn't helping your case, right?"

"Meh," Musashi grunted. "All I care is that you don't destroy the trebuchet. We put a lot of work into it."

"Fine."


	64. Rule 177

**Rule 177. Junyou is not allowed to go on pub crawls ever again.**

Wikipedia is one of the more insidious websites on the Internet. You go in to look something up, something innocuous, and then three hours later you've got twenty tabs open and are hastily explaining to your roommate why you're looking at the page for anal sex.

Junyou was merely the latest victim of the "wiki walk". She had started by looking up one of those "anime" shows that had been generating buzz all over the base, and now three hours had passed, she had twenty tabs open, and was currently looking at the page for "pub crawl".

"Ooh, now there's a good idea!" she decided, licking her lips. One hour-long session on Yelp and a quick look at Google Maps later, the carrier had her route planned out for the night. A tight purple minidress that showed off her ample... fuel tanks was selected, and after putting on some makeup, Junyou set out. At four in the afternoon.

Hey, she's an impatient girl, alright?

~o~

Kure Naval Base was a scene of organized chaos as every shipgirl there was mustered for a sortie. Task Force 58 had reported an absolutely _massive_ force of Abyssals, and both Kure and Yokosuka were mobilizing to back up the Americans. All hands were needed, given the size of the force reported.

So it was kind of a problem that Junyou was nowhere to be found.

"Could somebody tell me where the _flying fuck_ Junyou is?!" Hiryu shouted as she loaded up on bombs, torpedoes, and fuel.

A chorus of "No!"s came from the passing destroyers and cruisers. Hiyo, for her part, looked about ready to cry.

"I don't know!" she wailed. "She vanished a few days ago without saying anything, and I haven't seen her since!"

"Dammit!" the fleet carrier snapped. "Fine! We'll chew her out when we get back! Right now, we've got bigger problems!" Loading up the last bit of munitions, she jumped down onto the water, joined by Soryu, Hiyo, Ryuho, Shinano, Amagi, Unryu, and Katsuragi, as well as battleships Fuso, Yamashiro, Ise, and Hyuuga and their considerable escort. "Let's go!"

~o~

"So..." Hiyo said to a steaming mad Hiryu as they stood over the insensate, gift-wrapped, and completely nude form of Junyou. "What does the note say?"

"Well..." Hiryu ground out. "It seems that what was supposed to be a one-day bar crawl ended up being a five-day bender that ended in fucking _Shanghai._ She was picked up for a variety of charges, mostly related to her inebriated state and lack of clothing." Crumpling up the note the PLAN corvette had left behind, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number.

"This is the last straw. I'm having Hosho give her an intervention."


	65. Rule 179

**Rule 179. Yubari is to stop threatening Aoba with "that device".**

She was a tiger, stalking her prey through the jungle. But her weapons were not teeth and claws; no, her weapon was the camera held in her hands. She frowned slightly at that thought. Damn Musashi for breaking her last one. A good camera is expensive, dammit!

Her smile came back to the fore as her prey entered the room. Yuubari and her mad scientist tendencies were always good for a scoop, and she was in dire need of one that _wouldn't_ piss off all of Yokosuka like her last ideas. Or Enterprise and the Yamato sisters, which amounted to basically the same thing.

Aoba trained her camera as Yuubari glanced around, looking for something, then picked up a device of some kind. Aoba grinned; it looked vaguely gun-shaped. She pondered potential headlines: "Yuubari violates gun laws - again"? Mm, something to think about.

Sadly, Yuubari didn't seem to be doing anything interesting with the device, just walking over to- ohshit.

Aoba plastered on her best friendly smile as Yuubari whipped off the camoflauge tarp covering her. "H-Hey, Yuubari. How'd you find me?"

The Light cruiser gave her a classic "Are you stupid?" glare. "Your standard camo pattern doesn't help much in a concrete military installation," she said flatly. "Now get out."

"Oh, come on, Yuubari!" Aoba wheedled. "Just let me document this! I promise I won't-"

The heavy cruiser cut herself off as Yuubari jammed the same gun-shaped device she had been fiddling with earlier in her face.

"I'm not asking."

Aoba grabbed her equipment and immediately bolted out the door. Yuubari watched her go, then eyed the device in contemplation.

~o~

Lunchtime at Yokosuka was always a hectic affair. Unlike dinner and breakfast, the entire shipgirl population arrived all at once, leading to considerable jostling for position in the food lines before all the good stuff was gone. And so we find Aoba, intrepid reporter- *ahem*, I mean, nosy gossip, waiting in line at the cafeteria. Today, they're serving ramen from the nearby shops. It smells divine, and a quick calculation tells her that she'll get the last serving. And judging from the groans behind her, the rest of the line has figured it out, too. Today is a good day!

That thought is dashed when she feels something poke into her back.

"Let me switch places with you," Yuubari whispers into her ear. "Or you find out what this does."

"Uh..." Aoba stammered, looking longingly at the ramen. "You never did tell me what that did."

"Hell if I know," Yuubari replies. "Maybe it's one of my death rays. Maybe it'll turn you into a newt, or an orange. Or maybe it does nothing."

For a few moments, Aoba weighs the odds, before stepping out and behind the light cruiser.

"Thanks!" Yuubari chirps.

~o~

"Hey, Aoba, can I borrow 2000 yen?"

"Oh, go fuck o- OKAY, OKAY, JUST PUT THAT AWAY!"

~o~

"Nice instant repair bucket. I think I'll take it."

"No! I'm not going to- ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, FINE!"

~o~

"WHY ARE YOU POINTING THAT AT ME?!"

"No reason."

"WELL, POINT IT SOMEWHERE EL- AGH! NO, TAKE YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER!"

~o~

Kinugasa grunted, prying the device out of Yuubari's limp fingers.

"Thanks, sis," Aoba said, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "So, uh, what is that, anyway?"

"It's a prop," Kinugasa breathed, a grin splitting her face. "A prop! You got threatened into slavery by a goddamn _prop!_ " With that, the heavy cruiser threw her head back and laughed, tears streaming from her eyes.

"You don't need to be mean about it," Aoba whined, holding the white lab coat closed over a rather brief bikini.

Kinugasa didn't reply, having fallen to the ground, still laughing.


	66. Rule 181

**Rule 181. Please refrain from wearing holiday costumes while on duty.**

Admiral Goto sighed as he opened the door to his office. December had just rolled around, and everyone knew what that meant: Christmas. And that meant decorations, Christmas trees, Christmas cookies from Mamiya and Hosho (and a messy baking session with Nagato and Hoppo), and, of course, mistletoe, sexy Santa dresses, and other romantic things.

See, the Japanese celebrate Christmas a little differently from us Americans. Where Christmas in America tends to be a time for family, Christmas in Japan tends to be more about romance. This is a gross oversimplification, but it'll do for the purposes of this humor piece.

The upshot of this was that Admiral Goto was not surprised to see Kongo lying on his desk in the sexiest sexy Santa outfit he'd seen all day, tied up in ribbons and giving him bedroom eyes.

"A present for you, my dear," she crooned, blinking slowly at him.

Goto chuckled, before setting his briefcase down. "Sorry, Kongo, but we're on duty right now. Besides, sorry to say I've been a little desensitized to the Santa dresses."

"Awwww," Kongo pouted, snapping the ribbons with a flex of her arms but staying seated on the desk. "And I had this planned out and everything!" Her face fell, glaring at him. "None of those harlots tried to make a pass at you, did they?"

"Nope," Goto replied as he sat down in his very comfortable chair. "Not even Ashigara, and she was dressed up, too. I think avoiding the mistletoe helped, too."

"Hmm," Kongo mused, tapping her chin. "Perhaps she took my advice after all."

"Maybe. Do you think she's figured out that crush Captain Yonehara has on him?"

Kongo let out a rather un-ladylike snort. "Please. I may have put her on the right track, but she's still at the starting line. I give it another year."

Goto nodded, before pulling a small stack of papers off the pile. "Now, I have Christmas parties to look over and approve. Would you mind picking which one we should go to?"

"Certainly!"

~o~

Captain Sosuke Yonehara, Yokosuka's logistics officer and thus simultaneously one of the most important and underappreciated people on base, grumbled as he looked through the inventory and came to a dispiriting conclusion.

"How the hell are we out of eggnog already?!" he snapped. Sighing, he slumped back in the hard chair he used in his office as he tried to think of where he could get a few hundred tons of eggnog on short notice in December.

A knock at the door startled him out of his increasingly dark thoughts. "I swear to god, if it's someone asking about the eggnog..." he grumbled as he got up to get the door. Opening it, he was confronted by the sight of Ashigara in a Santa dress and hat. A two-piece Santa dress that was not so much a dress as a midriff-baring tube top and an extremely short miniskirt. He could feel his face heating up as his eyes debated whether to settle on the exposed cleavage or her creamy white thighs.

"-Yonehara?"

He blinked, realizing that she'd said something. "Y-Yes?!"

"Are you alright?" she said in concern. "You're all red. Do you have a fever? It is cold and flu season."

"N-No, I'm fine," he said, regaining his composure with an effort of will. "Anyway, how can I help you?"

Smiling sweetly, Ashigara held out an envelope decorated with foil holly. "I wanted to invite you to the Christmas party the heavy cruisers are throwing. You do so much good work for us, I wanted to make sure you knew we care."

 _'So this is what being on Cloud Nine feels like,'_ he mused to himself. A dopey grin spread over his face as he took the invitation.

"I assure you, I will be there," he said. His eyes fell on a large sack behind her. "What's in the sack?"

"Oh, that's the rest of the invitations," she said, not noticing Yonehara suddenly stagger and clutch his heart. "We're inviting most of the officers on base, so I can't stay. See you at the party!"

"Y-Yeah," he said shakily. "See you there."

Once Ashigara was out of sight, he staggered over to his chair and slumped down. "Fuck this," he muttered to himself. "I'm doubling that eggnog order. I'm gonna need it."

~o~

Admiral Goto sighed, unbuttoning his uniform coat as he entered his quarters. One of the perks of being an admiral was that he got quite a bit more living space than anyone else. As he entered the small kitchenette, he smiled at the plate of cookies left out for him.

 _'Ah, so she is here,'_ he thought to himself as he bit into one of the cookies. Making a beeline to his bedroom, he opened the door to find Kongo wrapped up in ribbons - and nothing else - on his bed.

"Hello, darling," she purred seductively.

Grinning, Goto finished off the cookie and shrugged off his coat before advancing on the battleship.


	67. Rule 182

**Rule 182. The lemonade stands have to go.**

"$50 a glass?!" Patterson shouted as she saw the sign.

"Uh, yes?" Mayrant said, digging a finger into her ear. "You got a problem with that? Blame environmental regulations, registration fees, and labor costs."

"But it just looks like you threw a lemon in some tap water!" Patterson fired back, pointing at the glass jug on the table.

"Well, I have to cut costs somewhere if I want to stay competitive," Mayrant replied, examining her finger.

"You're crazy, I'm gonna go buy somewhere else," Patterson retorted, storming off towards on of the other lemonade stands lining the walkway.

"Fine! Be that way!" Mayrant shouted after her. "It's anti-business types like you who are ruining the economy!" Grumbling, Mayrant sat back down to watch a steady stream of shipgirls go by without buying anything. "I need to be subsidized."

~o~

The two destroyers glared at each other from their booths, both unconsciously pouring lemonade and taking money from their long lines of customers.

"Hey," Franks said, smirking slightly. "Why don't you move? This is my spot."

"Your spot?!" Hailey shot back incredulously. "I applied for this spot fair and square!"

"First come, first serve!" Franks retorted. "Not like there's a procedure to these things, anyway."

"I have a permit!"

"Don't matter!"

"Why you-!"

And with that, Hailey dove at Franks, the two destroyers rolling on the ground, pulling at hair, mouths, and clothes. The onlookers cheered and brought up their cell phones to record the whole romp.

~o~

"Come on, you little brats!" White Plains shouted as she kept pouring lemonade and taking money. "We need more lemonade! Faster, cheaper!"

"Don't call us brats!" Jouett shouted at the escort carrier.

"And we're gonna start getting rind in the lemonade if we push this thing any faster!" Somers added, indicating the massive, smoke-belching machine that produced their lemonade.

"Ha! And we already got ya beat on quality!" Atlanta crowed from her own stand.

"Yeah, and how long before you run out of lemons or sugar?" White Plains retorted. The blush of rage that the light cruiser gained was most pleasing.

"Sh-Shut up!" Atlanta shouted before turning to Savannah and Nashville, who were making more lemonade. "How are we doing on ingredients?"

"Not good," Nashville said grimly. "One more batch after this and we're done."

"Damn it!" Atlanta shouted. "I don't wanna lose to that mass-production maniac!"

"What'd you call me?!"

"You heard what I said, Ms. Combustible-Vulnerable-Expendable!"

"Okay, that's it, I'm gonna deck you in the schnoz for that!"

"Bring it, ya metal shoebox!"

~o~

"Hey, uh, Langley?" Saratoga said as she sat with her fellow carrier on the roof of a nearby building, watching the carnage and sipping on lemonade. "You sure you don't want to get in on that? You make a mean lemonade."

"No, I'm good," Langley said serenely as she took another sip.


	68. Rule 189

**Rule 189. Harder, please don't encourage Darter's ninja fetish.**

"So..." Darter said as she did a twirl in front of the mirror. "How do I look?"

"Perfect!" Harder crowed, giving her fellow submarine a thumbs up. "You pull off the ninja look perfectly!"

Indeed, the Gato-class submarine was dressed in a sleeveless kimono-like top that came down to her upper thighs. The sleeves and legs of a mesh bodysuit poked out from underneath, and her forearms were covered in long, black gloves with an armor plate over the forearm and back of the hand. Short traditional Japanese socks and straw sandals covered her feet, and a black facemask and scarf covered her lower face. Completing the picture was a black headband with a metal plate on the front, and a short ninjatostrapped to her back.

"Very well. Now I must go practice my skills!" Darter announced before rushing out of the room. Harder merely sat back and listened to the dulcet tones of squealing destroyers and the thunk of shuriken.

"So," came a voice from behind her. "When do we introduce her to Atago?"

"Soon," Harder replied. "Patience. Let me work my magic."

~o~

"You look the part, you can handle the weapons, but we need to work on your stealth," Harder explained to a battered-looking Dace. "Cruisers and battleships are easy-mode. We'll start with destroyers, and then DEs. And if you do really well, you can try a run on England or one of the escort carriers."

"Yes, sensei!" Darter replied eagerly, her eyes sparkling. "I will follow whatever instructions you give me!"

"Alright then!" Harder grinned a grin that should have sent Darter screaming for the hills. "Your first task is-!"

~o~

Darter crept along the hallway, constantly checking for shipgirls. The room she was supposed to enter was in sight, but how to get in without being seen...?

Glancing upward, she jumped up and latched onto the large ventilation pipe running along the ceiling. Scooting along, making sure to be very quiet, she reached the door and froze, evening out her breathing. For three hours she hung there, until the door opened and Johnston came out, yawning and scratching her butt. Taking the opportunity, Darter swung down into the room, landing with the grace and quietness of a cat. She tensed, waiting for a response, but only heard the sound of Heermann and Hoel sleeping. She let out an internal sigh of relief, and crept over to the wall next to the door, pressing herself against it.

A few minutes later, the door swung open, admitting Johnston, who was still scratching her butt. Darter watched as the destroyer shambled over to her bed and fell down on it. Soon, the soft breathing of sleep reached Darter's ears, and she knew she was home free.

The undergarments of all three destroyers were soon loaded into a sack she had brought with her. Getting out was easy; all she had to do was unlock the door, slip out, and lock it again.

Only when she was in the all did she let a soft squeal of enjoyment slip out of her lips. She had done it! Days of training had paid off! Wait until Harder-sensei heard about her accomplishment!

~o~

"Dace."

The submarine looked up from her breakfast to the sight of Johnston glaring down at her, Heermann and Hoel behind her. Though their glares were somewhat lessened by their luminescent blushes and the fact that they kept tugging their skirts down.

"Yes?" she said innocently.

"Where are they," Johnston growled.

"Why, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't play coy with us, Dace!" Johnston snapped, slamming her hands on the table. "We know about Darter's ninja fetish and that Harder encouraged her! We know she was the thief! We know both of them passed on the goods!"

"And...?"

"And we know it was all your idea." The destroyer leaned into Dace's impassive face, her canines quite prominent. "So tell us where you hid our underwear, and maybe we'll be nice."

"I'm telling you, I have no idea," Dace stated in annoyance. "Now, if you're quite done I'd like to finish my breakfast in peace."

Johnston sighed. "Fine, we're doing this the hard way." The destroyer snapped her fingers, and Dace felt a hand fall on her shoulder. She turned around to see USS England behind her, face impassive as always.

"England," Johnston said gleefully. "Do your worst."


	69. Rule 191

**Rule 191. U-2511 is to stop sneaking up on people while they're in conversation. The Royal Navy is scared enough of you as it is.**

"Look, Repulse, all I'm saying is that maybe you should stick to the recipe for now."

For a moment, Renown held out hope that her sister would listen, only to sigh heavily as Repulse turned up her nose.

" _Cooks_ follow the recipe," she sniffed. "Chefs like _me_ blaze their own paths!"

"Does that path include killing all your taste-testers?" U-2511 interjected.

"DWAH!" both battlecruisers yelped as they flung themselves against the nearest wall. "When did you-?!"

"Get here?" the U-boat finished, sipping at a juice box. "I've been here for the last five minutes. Really, Repulse, do the world a favor and follow the recipe for once."

"S-Sure," she stammered.

"Well, my work here is done." U-2511 punctuated her point with a final slurp from her juice box before tossing it into the nearest trash can. "See ya."

~o~

"Eh, the Ninth Doctor was better," Dorsetshire said dismissively.

"YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!" Neptune retorted. "NO ONE BEATS ELEVEN! Oh, that Matt Smith... so dreamy..."

"What, no love for classic Who?" Venerable grumbled.

"Eh, Doctor Who kinda sucks," U-2511 interjected.

"GAH!" the three shipgirls shouted as they all jumped a foot in the air.

"Jesus, don't sneak up on us like that!" Neptune snapped.

"And what was that heresy I heard?!" Venerable added.

"You're one to talk, you Docshipper," U-2511 retorted, prompting the light carrier to go crimson and start steaming.

"They... get Doctor Who in Germany?" Dorsetshire said uneasily.

"Nah," the U-boat replied. "But the power of Netflix is great and terrible..."

~o~

The group of destroyers U-2511 had been listening too had been on the same topic for a while now. What was it again? Oh, yeah, that boy band One Direction. And, hmm, there was an opening in the conversation.

"Personally, I think that-" she said before getting immediately power-tackled by the entire mass of destroyers.

"Heh, sorry about that," Beagle said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head.

"No, I should be sorry," U-2511 assured her through the two wads of tissue stuffed up her nose to stem the bleeding. "I should probably announce my presence more. It's just... sneaking just comes so easily, y'know?"

"Yeah. The Americans who went through that GUPPY program say the same thing." Beagle hummed in contemplation for a moment before slapping her fist into her hand. "I know! You need to find someone who can help you be more loud!"

U-2511 nodded at that. Makes sense. "Thanks. I'll do that."

~o~

"Iowa. I need you to teach me how to be loud."


	70. Rule 192

**Rule 192. Naka, stop trying to compete with Enterprise and Indefatigable over who has the largest fan following.**

"Goodbye, everybody! I'll see you next week!"

Cutting the feed to her weekly vlog, Naka sighed and leaned back, basking in the adoration of her fans. After a few minutes of that, she leaned forward and typed her name into Google, something she liked to do to keep abreast of people's opinions of her.

This week's search turned up her usual vlog, as well as something new: a ranking of shipgirls by popularity. Grinning, Naka clicked on the link - and promptly let out a shriek of rage.

" _Fifth?!_ "

Indeed, Japan's idol was sitting at fifth in the rankings, just ahead of Yamato and Warspite, but behind, in order, Indefatigable, Enterprise, Hood, and Arizona.

Growling, Naka angrily pulled up her email and composed an angry letter to all four of them. Well, except Enterprise. Even as upset as she was, Naka knew that Enterprise had earned her popularity ten times over.

"How dare they upstage me!" she muttered to herself as she pressed the send button. "I'll show them. I'll show them all! Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

~o~

Fifteen minutes and several time zones later, Arizona was checking her email when she saw the missive from Naka. Curious, the battleship opened it.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she groaned, cradling her face in one hand as she read the email.

"What is it?" Pennsylvania asked curiously from her bed.

"Naka just sent me an email complaining about how I'm more popular than her," Arizona replied, indicating the screen. Pennsylvania loomed over her shoulder reading it for herself as Arizona threw her arms up in exasperation. "I mean, she can have my fucking fanbase! I didn't ask to become a goddamn martyr! In fact, you know what, I'm gonna tell her that."

Leaning over her computer, Arizona hastily typed out the reply and hit send. The metallic *click-clack* of a gun slide being pulled back caused her to turn around to the sight of Pennsylvania in an Army helmet, safety goggles, vest, and gloves, carrying a very large rifle in her hands.

"Uh, Pennsy?" Arizona said, slightly nervous. "Where are you going?"

"No one talks to my sister like that," the battleship growled, her voice an octave lower than usual. "No. One."

~o~

Hood discovered her email an hour after that. The subject line was enough to simply make her delete it on the spot.

After the events that transpired, she would be quite pleased with that decision.

~o~

"Kukukukuku," Indefatigable chuckled from her dark sanctuary. "I see Naka has noticed the... great injustice. She should be amenable to an alliance."

Typing up a quick email, the razee sent it off before tenting her hands in front of her face.

"Soon," she said to herself. "Very soon."

Suddenly the door was thrown open, Indefatigable falling to the floor clutching her eyes and howling in pain.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Indefatigable, turn on the lights!" Warrior snapped before doing just that.

~o~

The next morning, Naka checked her email and view counts like usual. The latter continued its steady uptick; the former she read eagerly.

"Hmph. A likely story," Naka sniffed at Arizona's email. The next one caused her to frown.

"'I'm coming for you'?" she muttered. "Who the hell sent that? Oh well, doesn't matter."

It was Indefatigable's email, though, that caused a smile to spread across her face.

"An alliance, huh?" Naka mused, before starting a reply. "Well, might as well see what comes of tha-"

The door to her room suddenly crashed open behind her. The light cruiser whipped around to see Pennsylvania in the doorway, brandishing two massive assault rifles and decked out like an 80s action hero.

"NAKA! YOU HAVE INSULTED MY SISTER! NOW PREPARE TO DIE!"


	71. Rule 194

**Rule 194. Pool parties are now banned.**

I-19, alias Iku, stalked through the water of the base's swimming pool. Shipgirls were not normally swimmers; swimming in the ocean was, for the vast majority of the Japanese shipgirls, entirely too reminiscent of sinking. Which, it must be said, was one of the contributing factors to the unease around submarines. It just wasn't natural!

Swimming pools, on the other hand, were fine. Shipgirls seemed to take them as another form of dock, and their clear artificiality and lack of salt helped. Unfortunately, Yokosuka only had one pool, and that was for training submarines. Lobbying for a recreational pool had gone nowhere due to cost. However, with Yukikaze's financial windfall and Yubari's experiments with high explosive, Logistics had decided that there was enough for a large pool.

Naturally, the shipgirls of Yokosuka had celebrated with a massive pool party, filling nearly every inch. And naturally, Iku was there to take in the sight of all these shipgirls in their swimsuits.

 _'Ah, cherries, peaches, melons- I love the fruits of summer!'_

From string bikinis all the way up to Shimakaze's racing swimsuit - which ironically covered more of her than her usual outfit - there was no shortage of flesh to ogle.

Still, this is Iku we're talking about here. No way she'd be content to just _ogle_.

 _'Now, let's see,'_ the submarine thought to herself. _'Who'd be a good target?'_

The Kongo sisters were right out. She still remembered how easily and brutally Kongo had dismantled her. Similarly, the destroyers were out as well. They had too many overprotective big sisters and were way too good at ASW. Similarly, Yuubari and Ooyodo were ruled out for the same reason.

Her eyes fell on Kumano, lounging on a float in the pool with some sort of tropical drink looking very confused as to the chaotic fun going on around her. And that was a nice bikini she had on, revealing yet tastefully elegant. She'll do!

Creeping up on her target, and taking great care not to hit anyone's legs, Iku parked herself underneath the float and pushed.

"Kyaaa!" Kumano shrieked as she hit the water. "I- Wha- Who did that!"

Standing up in the water, covering her arms, Kumano was wide open for Iku's next move. Carefully grasping the sides of her bottoms, the submarine yanked down.

"KYAAAAAA!"

Iku was immediately treated to the delightful scene of Kumano trying to cover herself, but from her underwater vantage point the heavy cruiser's cute butt was on display. Letting the bottoms idly drift away, and chaos erupt in the pool as Kumano began reflexively punching anyone who got close, Iku sought out her next target.

There! Tatsuta, teasing Tenryuu if that blush is any indication. The two were in the deeper end of the pool, treading water, the line up to mid-chest. And best of all, her top was secured by back knots.

 _'I'm sure Tenryuu won't mind a little revenge by proxy.'_

Sneaking up behind Tatsuta, Iku carefully gripped the two knots and yanked. The knots came undone, the top fluttering to the water. For a second, the two light cruisers stood frozen before Tatsuta shrieked and covered her breasts with her arms.

"Don't look!"

"Don't plan to!" Tenryuu retorted, shooting her arm out and grabbing something... soft. ""Cause I got the culprit right here!"

As Tenryuu lifted Iku out of the water by her right breast, face thunderous, it occurred to the submarine that she may have miscalculated Tenryuu's enmity towards her sister.

~o~

"AUGH!"

"MY EYES!"

"SO GLAD FOR MY EYEPATCH RIGHT NOW, SO THAT I HAVE AT LEAST ONE WORKING EYE WHEN I _CLAW OUT_ THE OTHER!"

The toga party had seemed like a good idea when it was conceived. Iku had been banned, so there would be no lewdness. And everyone was making damn sure there were no wardrobe malfunctions. Unfortunately, not ten minutes in and the whole thing was already dead. Mostly because someone had had the bright idea of inviting several Diet members, all of whom had an average age hovering somewhere in the 60s. Not to mention these were not military men, toned by constant exercise.

Alright, jeez, you asked for it: it was a bunch of fat old men in togas. Happy? Hope so, because I'm gonna need all the bleach to get that image out of my head.

~o~

The glow-in-the-dark rave had seemed like another good idea. Music, dancing, and bright lights. Nothing could go wrong!

Then Nagato and several Guadalcanal veterans had PTSD attacks. Turns out the lights plus the wall of noise plus the darkness equals bad memories. Of course, PTSD attacks are a very different animal when you're dealing with anthropomorphic personifications of steel warships with tremendous strength.

~o~

Admiral Goto looked over the request for a Christmas party. Heavy cruisers and officers only, tasteful decor, no mistletoe, no alcohol. Smiling, Goto stamped 'Approved' on it and sent it on its way.


	72. Rule 198

**Rule 198. Girls are not allowed to board any vessel docked at the base without the permission of the CO and the captain of the vessel.**

It was a bright, sunny morning in Yokosuka when the shipgirls of the base crowded onto the docks to see the new ships nosing into the base. The first was the destroyer USS James Kirk, named for the deceased Rear Admiral who had sacrificed himself and what was left of his command to allow the remaining transports evacuating from Hawaii to escape. The lead ship of her class of destroyer, she combined a conventional hull form with the electric drive and greater stealth shaping of the Zumwalt class. Other new features included the powerful 150mm railgun, two dual-purpose laser systems, over 100 VLS cells, a hangar for two helicoptors and/or UCAVs, and a new LIDAR system that could cut through Abyssal shrouds at far greater ranges than conventional radar. Combined with a larger crew for more damage control and general greater survivability, it was hoped that the Kirk class could support shipgirls against the Abyssal forces while still retaining considerable capability against conventional threats.

Still, as cool as the new destroyer was, the two trimarans next to her commanded even more attention. The USS Independence and USS Manchester were both Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships, a type that had mostly survived the fight against the Abyssals due to their great speed. From reports, the two LCS in question had been modified as tenders for shipgirls, with repair, refueling, and rearmament facilities on board for six shipgirls each.

All good ideas, but all untested in combat. And that's what they were there for. The Japanese needed a force multiplier, and the USN needed to test its new toys in a combat situation. Win-win, in theory.

In practice...

~o~

An hour later, Admiral Goto was slumped in his chair, looking alarmingly dead-eyed. Ooyodo made a note to get him to his therapist a few days early this week.

"What's the damage, Ooyodo," he droned in a monotone.

The light cruiser winced as she looked at the list. It was honestly hard to blame him. "So, I'm sure you know that some of our shipgirls ended up on the Kirk."

Goto nodded, indicating with his hand for her to continue.

"Well, needless to say, the Americans are very annoyed at us for having them run around on the ship without permission. The still _very classified_ ship, I might add. Some of the hotheads in the Pentagon are calling for extradition for revealing state secrets."

Goto only let out a low whine.

"The other problem we now have is that the Diet is after our heads. You know the railgun shot?"

Goto let out that low whine again. When he had seen that thing turn towards the base, it had definitely added a few gray hairs to his rapidly-graying head.

"Well, it hit Mt. Fuji, and apparently there's now a large trench marring the peak."

For a moment Goto was silent. "Sometimes I wish Kongo didn't frown on ritual suicide," Goto said morosely. "Do we know who got on board?"

"Yes, Admiral. The destroyers have already been given a stern talking-to by their flotilla leaders, and they'll be losing ice cream privileges for the next week. Yuubari, on the other hand, she'll need a stiffer punishment."

"I'll think of something," Goto sighed. "And think of a way to placate the Americans and the Diet. This is gonna be a fun week."


	73. Rule 199

**199\. The airfield, hangars, and all aviation facilities are now off limits to all ship girls. You might have been an aircraft carrier in a past lifetime, but that does not mean you know how to fly.**

Indefatigable (the carrier, not the crazy frigate) and Indomitable panted heavily as they sprinted at flank speed for one of the Scotland airfields. They had to get there, and soon, before their fellow carrier did something _really_ stupid.

Their shoes began clacking on concrete instead of thumping into grass and dirt, but they could see that they were too late. A Typhoon fighter jet was nosing out of one of the hangars, a very familiar face in the cockpit.

"IMPLACABLE!" Indefatigable shouted. "STOP! THIS IS A BAD IDEA!"

The carrier didn't say anything, and simply kept taxiing the fighter jet for the runway. Airbase personnel were flooding onto the tarmac, but they weren't going to make it in time.

"Come on!" Indomitable shouted, making a dash for the plane. "We need to get in front of her!"

The two carriers sprinted forward again, but they were two slow. Even as the gap closed the fighter began to pick up speed, and soon it was soaring for a takeoff. The two carriers skidded to a stop and looked up, resigning themselves for a show.

"Wow," Indomitable said as she watched the takeoff. "Didn't know they could climb vertically."

"The triumph of thrust over aerodynamics indeed," Indefatigable mused. She frowned as the fighter flipped upside down and began wobbling forward. "Is it just me, or does Implacable have no idea what she's doing?"

"No, I agree," Indomitable nodded as the jet inscribed a drunken aileron roll. "She's barely controlling that thing."

The carrier had barely finished that sentence when the nose began to pitch up. Higher and higher, until the plane went into what was clearly an aerodynamic stall and pitched nose-first for the ground.

"That is going to hurt," Indefatigable glibly noted.

The Typhoon impacted the ground nose-first at several hundred miles an hour. Even for a shipgirl as sturdy as one of the British armored carriers, such an impact was not something you just walked away from. Implacable hauled herself out of the wreckage - and was immediately beset by a pack of MPs.

"Well, that's that." Indefatigable glanced at the wrecked $100 million fighter jet and winced. "That's coming out of her paycheck, I bet..."

~o~

"Goddamn it, Aquila, get down from there before you hurt yourself!"

Aquila glanced down from her perch above one of Italy's many large coastal cliffs, and took a deep breath, flaring the wings of eagle feathers she had painstakingly fashioned. Closing her eyes, she leaned off the cliff and frantically pumped her arms.

The impact with the sand was painful. Getting a mouthful of it was worse. Getting buried up to her waist was just unbearable.

"Could someone please pluck her out of the ground?" an annoyed Giulio Cesare called out, poking the insensate carrier's leg for emphasis.


	74. Rule 201

**Rule 201. All submarines are reminded that even though they have their own island to live on, that island is still a part of the base.**

"Admiral, we have a problem."

Admiral Hartmann looked up from his paperwork to the grim visage of the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. By now, Hartmann was quite familiar with the German shipgirl's many subtle variations on her default expression, and this one was "minor problem, could become serious problem very fast'.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"The submarines have overthrown their handlers and declared their part of the base a sovereign nation," Hipper replied.

Hartmann blinked. With so many U-boats, a new naval base had been built on an offshore island to accommodate them all. Though technically still a part of the mainland naval base, in practice it was largely self-sufficient in everything except command staff, and had a few months worth of fuel and other stores. As a sovereign nation, it could be worse.

"What are their demands?" he said, his voice grave.

"Mostly, business as usual," Hipper continued. "We send supplies, they fight the Abyssals. The only two changes they made were that they can charge tolls to visitors, and that no destroyers are to set foot on the island. Or a one-mile distance from the shore."

Hartmann snorted. "And how are they going to enforce that?"

Both Hartmann and Hipper perked up as they heard the sound of a young girl screaming doppler towards them. The two glanced out the window just in time to see HMS Foxhound falling out of the sky, screaming at the top of her lungs and tears streaming from her eyes. The British destroyer's flight came to an abrupt end against the shatterproof glass of the window, her whole body plastering itself onto the glass before she slowly slid down.

"At a guess?" Hipper drawled. "Like that."

"Okay then," Hartmann said slowly, his gaze hardening. "Hipper, go to that island, see if there are any loyalist submarines we could turn." Pressing a button on his desk, he started up his intercom. "Bismarck, could you call Admiral Briggs in Norfolk, please? Tell him I need to borrow England for a mission."

Hipper shuddered as she left the room. The heavy cruiser almost felt sorry for the U-boats as she thought about what the little American DE would do to them.

~o~

U-boat island was on high alert. Hartmann's request for reinforcements had not gone unnoticed by the U-boats, and they had begun regular patrols around the island in preparation. For the most part, this had fallen on the Type II boats; they weren't fighting the Abyssals much anyway, and they were better suited for stealthy operations in the littorals.

U-16 was on the surface patrolling that night. Well, at least until she felt a hand clamp onto her ankle. Though she tried to lift her foot out, the grip was ironclad and she was quickly dragged underwater to the sight of a brown-haired girl in scuba gear. It should have been comical, but the face-concealing gear pinged the uncanny valley quite well. She tried to thrash, to scream, anything to alert her comrades, but it was no use. The last thing she saw were piercing brown eyes before she blacked out.

~o~

"You see, George?" USS England said as she stowed her scuba gear and the unconscious form of U-16, pulling on her rigging with its 3" gun and Hedgehog. "To defeat the submarine, you must think like the submarine. And the best way to do that is to _become_ a submarine."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," USS George said as she stowed her own gear and pulled out a portable sonar set from the waterproof backpack she was carrying and attaching it to her own rigging. "Let's just do this, okay?"

Nodding, England set off into the forest, George following behind.

~o~

What had been the main conference room of the base was now a hive of activity as submarines ran back and forth, trying to coordinate a defense. It was a futile effort so far, not helped by half the U-boats on the island just steaming out into the North Sea, but now they had nearly twenty boats ready to attack. U-47 was quite confident they'd do the job.

Thirty seconds later that confidence had completely evaporated after hearing the reports on the radio.

 _"What the- AUGH!"_

 _*blam blam blam* "You don't scare me, you monster, you hear me? You don't scare me!"_

 _"Where are you?!"_

 _"Right here."_

The legendary U-boat flinched back as if struck. She recognized that voice.

 _'So. Hartmann sent her after me, huh? Well, there's only one thing to do.'_

"Everyone," she announced, bringing the chaos to a temporary halt. "I am going to take care of these invaders myself. If I do not return within half an hour, feel free to surrender the island."

As one, the German U-boats stood to attention and snappd a salute. U-47 nodded, and then swept out of the room. Time to meet her fate.

~o~

"Alright, there's the base," George said as she looked through a pair of captured binoculars. "No guards. We'll be able to waltz right in."

"Or perhaps not," England countered, pointing to U-47 exiting the building.

"I see her," George replied. "How do you want to play this?"

"England!" U-47 shouted. "Come out and face me!"

So intent was she on scanning the treeline that she missed England landing behind her with a soft thump. The only inkling she had that something was wrong was a pair of arms wrapping around her waist, before England slammed her into the ground head-first in an impressive suplex.

"Little flashy, but it works." George turned a malevolent grin towards the building. "Now then-"

With a click, a white flag popped out of the top of the base.

"Or they could surrender. That works, too."


	75. Rule 205

**205\. The engineering fairies are to think of better ways to remind their shipgirls about their refits. Our therapist bills are high enough as is.**

Maya hummed cheerfully as she walked back to her room from a shower, towel wrapped around her neck. Opening her door, she found her sister Chokai sitting at their shared computer.

"Uh, Chokai? Don't you have an appointment with Akashi for a refit?"

"Nah, I don't need it," Chokai replied, adjusting her glasses. "I didn't need it during the war to kick ass, and I don't need it now."

Maya sighed and began getting dressed. "Suit yourself."

There was a *ding!* from the computer as an email arrived in Chokai's inbox.

"'Why Refits Matter'," she read from the subject line. "Heh, I wonder how they're going to try to convince me."

Clicking on the email, she was confronted by an embedded image of Hood as a ship, looking resplendent in her prewar look. Scrolling down, she found a piece of art of Hood as a shipgirl broken in two and sinking beneath the waves. Chokai shuddered, but quickly shook her head to dispel her unease.

"Heh, that was a fluke. A-A fluke," she reassured herself as she scrolled down. The next image was of Barham as a ship anchored in Malta. Below that was the famous picture of her blowing up from her torpedo hit, the resolution high enough to see men crawling around on her sides. By now here hands were shaking slightly.

"A-A coincidence! Just a coincidence! Hahahahaha..."

The next photo was of Repulse in ship form, followed below by the shipgirls frantically firing every one of her AA guns at a swarm of Abyssal torpedo bombers, the fire clearly not enough.

Sweat poured from the heavy cruiser's brow, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. And yet, she couldn't keep herself from scrolling even further down. The next photo was of a brand-new Rodney, just leaving the builder's yard. Followed below were Malaya, Revenge, Resolution, and Ramillies.

Below were all five in shipgirl form, in wheelchairs sitting despondently on the shores of Scapa Flow looking at the tombstones of their fallen comrades.

"N-No..." Chokai whimpered. There was still a little email left, though. Her hand making the mouse clatter on the desk, she scrolled down.

Finally, there was Courbet. The oldest French shipgirl, the teacher of not only the French shipgirls but many of the Italians. A motherly ship to rival Hosho and Langley. Even the British liked her, for God's sake! Chokai fought to stop her finger from scrolling. She didn't want to see this, dammit! And yet, her traitorous finger flicked at the wheel.

The last picture was of Courbet's lifeless body lying on the seabed, a gaggle of Abyssal transports attempting to leave but finding themselves blocked. It was too much to take; with an audible crack, the last of her composure shattered.

"IAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" she screamed, throwing herself out of the chair and running out of the room, still screaming.

Maya, who had been in the act of putting her shirt on, stared, dumbfounded, at the cloud of dust Chokai had left behind. "What the hell?"


	76. Rule 208

**Rule 208. Please stop giving Shimakaze candy. We have enough trouble keeping her from challenging Maury and Le Fantasque to races as it is.**

Fujinami yawned widely as she trundled into the common area, barely blinking at the sight of a wide-eyed Shimakaze sitting bolt upright on the couch, a stack of sudoku puzzles on the table in front of her. "Morning, Shimakaze. How was your night?"

"Isolvedfivehundredsudokushowwasyournight?" Shimakaze rattled off, not budging an inch.

"Exhausting." The sleepy destroyer's eyes fell on a bowl of candy she'd missed in her tiredness. "Hey, could I have some candy?" she said, reaching her hand out.

With alarming speed, Shimakaze, grabbed the bowl away. "Areyoucrazythisismycandygogetyourownohnowaitthat'sminetooit'sallmine!"

As Fujinami backed away slowly, wide-eyed and shivering, Shimakaze upended the bowl in her mouth and began chewing on the candy, wrappers and all. The bowl soon followed, ground down into plastic shards. It was at this point that Fujinami pulled out a small rosary she hadn't known she'd had in her pocket and thrust it in Shimakaze's direction.

Sadly, it didn't seem to look, as the demonic apparition in front of her lolled its head on a suddenly boneless neck and _grinned_ at her with a mouth _far_ too wide to be natural. And then suddenly, she was gone.

Fujinami simply blinked once, twice, before hastily scurrying back to her room. "I... think I need some more sleep," she told herself.

~o~

Admiral Goto sighed as he approached the empty storage room he'd been called to. "And none of you could stop her?"

Tenryuu, Kongo, and Hosho all turned and gave him a flat look punctuated by their mutual black eyes.

"Right, stupid question," Goto said as he slid open the door. "Do we know how she got this way?"

Inside was a blur bouncing back and forth between the walls. The occasional glimpses of blue and platinum blonde were the only signs that it was Shimakaze there.

"Sugar," Tenryuu spat. "Got into the stash her roommates had."

Goto felt a block of ice form in his stomach. "... How much candy are we talking here?"

The silence was answer enough.

"Right," Goto decided. "I'm calling in a specialist."

~o~

Admiral Kaidanovsky had just been packing up her things to go to bed when the phone rang. "Da?"

 _"Admiral Kaidanovsky. I need to borrow Tashkent. One of my destroyers has gotten well out of hand."_

"Don't you have your light cruisers for that?" she replied, stuffing papers into her briefcase.

 _"Normally, yes, but Shimakaze is our fastest destroyer and she's hopped up on sugar."_

"I usually wait until the sugar high is gone," the Russian admiral noted as she left her office.

 _"We would, too, except it's a lot of sugar. Think four Halloween stashes."_

Admiral Kaidanovsky froze as she calculated the sugar content of that much candy. "I see. If you can lure her onto the Sea of Japan, things will go a lot faster."

 _"Thank you."_

As the call ended, Admiral Kaidanovsky sighed and put the call out of her mind. It was not her problem anymore.

~o~

All anyone knows of that fateful day on the Sea of Japan is that Tashkent met Shimakaze, and that Tashkent came away with a love of Kit-Kats and Shimakaze gained an appreciation for fine vodka, which she shared with Hibiki. All anyone saw was a blur.


	77. Rule 210

**Rule 210. If you value your life, under no circumstances should you EVER interrupt Tea Time that Kongou has arranged with the RN ship girls.**

"- how is Greyhound doing?"

"- Oh, what did Indefatigable do this time?"

"- really should introduce you to Yahagi some time, I have a feeling you'll get along marvelously-"

"- Really? An Ru-class battleship-?"

The low hum of gossip wafted through the room as Kongo, Hood, Barham, Courageous, Dorsetshire, Exeter, Prince of Wales, Repulse, and Enterprise chatted amongst each other over several pots of tea Delhi had graciously prepared. The light cruiser was herself standing off to the side, drinking an American-style sweet iced tea and keeping an eye on the pots for any needed refills.

Kongo and Hood had first organized teatime shortly after the latter had been summoned. Having never met the British shipgirl, she had traveled to Britain, and the two had immediately hit it off over a pot of tea. Since then, they had been having these meetings monthly, attracting more and more shipgirls, though only shipgirls of heavy cruiser weight and above had the patience to visit. And all of them looked forward to meeting their Japanese cousin, who it must be noted was older than every single one of them.

So you can imagine how... peeved they were when a red-faced, panting lieutenant threw the door open with a loud bang.

"Hood! We-" was as far as the lieutenant got before Kongo placed down her cup with an audible clink.

"Young man," she said sternly. "You'd better have a very good reason to interrupt our tea time."

~o~

The mighty Rock Fortress Princess swam through the sea to the west of Gibraltar. Today was the day she would expel the ships and humans squatting on the short peninsula that was her rightful home! The Spanish and Force H would not stop her!

Not for the first time, she made a mental note to give a nice gift to the Island Siege Empress for distracting the rest of the Mediterranean forces.

~o~

"And they're certain this is a Princess-class Abyssal?"

The lieutenant nodded, despite the sweat that dripped from his brow.

Kongo sighed before standing up. "Alright. Lieutenant, we need to get in touch with the RAF. Their C-17s are the only thing that can get us there in time." Turning to the shipgirls, she said, "All of you, get your rigging on. I know you're fuelled up, but top off just in case. Delhi, if you could-"

"Way ahead of you, Kongo," the light cruiser answered with a smirk, wheeling out an industrial-sized microwave.

"Alright." Pleased at the preparations, Kongo looked each and every shipgirl present in the eye. "I know we've never worked together before, and that that's usually a recipe for disaster. We have no destroyers, and barely any air support." She grinned savagely. "And you know what? We're still gonna win, because whoever this Abyssal is, _she fucked with our tea._ And that will not stand! Right?!"

"Aye!" the shipgirls present chorused.

"Good! Let's get moving!"

~o~

The Rock Fortress Princess emerged from the water, planes launching from her airfield and ships, ranging from torpedo boats to might Wo-class carriers and Re-class battleships, emerging from her harbor. She could see the defenders scrambling to intercept her, but they would only be half-ready.

A sudden ping on her radar caught her attention, and she smirked. Transport aircraft? Really? Hugging the terrain to hide from her radar was clever, but climbing wouldn't save them from her fighters.

~o~

"Incoming bandits!" Delhi shouted.

"This is it, girls!" Kongo shouted over the wind. "Jump!"

~o~

Rock Fortress Princess smirked as the three cargo planes disintegrated under her fighters' guns, only to frown as several, much smaller blips detached. Most would land away from her - but one was heading right for her! Frantically, Rock Fortress Princess aimed her AA guns and vectored in fighters. To her dismay, the proximity-fused 3.7" and 5.25", as well as fighter-mounted machine guns, proved wholly ineffective. And as the blip got closer, she could see why: the blip was actually the carrier Courageous diving out of the sky head-first.

"MACROSS-!" Courageous shouted, drawing a fist back. "DAEDALUS ATTACK!"

The punch landed square in the middle of the Rock Fortress Princess's face, reducing her nose to the approximate shape and depth of a quarter. Growling, the princess righted herself, aiming her 9.2" guns at the interloper - only to eat a salvo of Type 3 14" to the face.

"You interrupted tea time," Kongo said sternly. "You never interrupt tea time."


	78. Rule 214

**Rule 214. Ooi, you are to stop following Kitakami in a crouch, muttering "The precious... my precious..."**

Ooi scuttled through Yokosuka Naval Base on all fours, pausing every so often to sniff the air. Every few seconds, she would say "The precious... my precious..." in a breathless and increasingly desperate tone. However, it wasn't any of this that had the shipgirls and sailors of the base giving her a _very_ wide berth, though they didn't help. It was her eyes, eyes like a rotten sewer and glittering with a hint of madness.

The torpedo cruiser repeated this act throughout half the base, leaving a bubble of space and hushed whispers in her wake. Finally, she came to the cafeteria, and caught sight of her target. Shuddering in ecstasy, Ooi stood up and gripped her cheeks, a rapturous expression on her face. "The sweetest perfection..." she whispered to herself, before shuddering again and letting out a small "Ah!" For a moment, she wobbled on her feet, as if trying to decide whether to fall to her knees or step forward, eventually choosing the latter.

"Kitakami-sama..." she said as she stepped forward - and as promptly engulfed in an explosion that sent her flying into the wall.

"Nice..." Kitakami said as she polished off the sandwich she was eating.

"It's no problem," HMS Adventure said. "Mines just love a fat, stupid target. And from the looks of things, that girl qualifies."

The two ships watched as Ooi staggered to her feet, stepped forward - and onto another mine, this one sending her up into the ceiling.

"Yup, she qualifies," Adventure continued, tracking the torpedo cruiser's upward trajectory. "Thousand yen says she lands on a mine."

"You're on," Kitakami replied, just as interested.

Ooi floated up, just barely touching the ceiling before coming down. Flipping in mid-air, she came to a landing in a three-point stance - each of the three points hitting another mine.

"Called it," Adventure said, taking the note Kitakami slid her as Ooi pinwheeled in the air.

"I could watch this all day..." Kitakami sighed contentedly.

~o~

"Aaaaand that's the last of 'em," Adventure observed with more than a little worry. "Jesus, what do you guys feed your cruisers?!"

"I think we have bigger problems to worry about," Kitakami said nervously, slowly edging towards the exit.

"Kitakami-sama..." the burnt, shambling wreck that was once Ooi moaned as it stumbled forward. "I... will... not... die... until you... are... in... my... arms..."

"Okay, fuck that noise!" And with that, Kitakami turned tail and bolted out of the cafeteria. For a second, Ooi did nothing.

"YOU'RE. GOING. TO _LOVE ME!"_ Ooi shouted, shaking off the soot covering her and bolting after her sister.


	79. Rule 218

**Rule 218. Carrying full sized battle flags on missions is not allowed.**

Furutaka tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the last member of their small task force to arrive. The heavy cruiser, along with the light cruiser Isuzu and Desdiv 24, consisting of Kawakaze, Suzukaze, and Umikaze and joined by Teruzuki and Hamakaze, who had found their divisions laid up for repair, upgrade, and/or overhaul, were tasked with hitting a sizable group of Abyssal transports heading for Iwo Jima, escorted by cruisers and destroyeres. It was believed that the Abyssals were attempting to set up an Installation-type Abyssal there as a shelter for Abyssals hitting the Japanese coast. And, well, they couldn't have that.

Naturally, one light cruiser, five destroyers, and the oldest heavy cruiser in the fleet was not sufficient. Kure had been able to detach one of their heavy hitters to help out. And she was late!

Finally, just as Furutaka was considering turning on her searchlights, Mogami appeared over the horizon.

"Finally," Furutaka muttered. However, as the other heavy cruiser got closer, she could see that Mogami was carrying something. Squinting, Furutaka tried to make it out, and her eyes widened as she realized what it was.

"Hey, everyone!" Mogami said, waving as she came up. "Sorry, I'm late, I was just finishing up-"

"That full-sized rising sun battle flag you're carrying?" Furutaka deadpanned.

"Mou, Furutaka, so mean!" Mogami pouted as she unfurled the flag. It was impressive craftsmanship, Furutaka had to admit. It was also huge, bigger than the shipgirl carrying it. "It'll help with morale, seeing our symbol the whole battle."

Furutaka sighed, sensing that her fellow heavy cruiser wasn't going to back down on this. "Fine, carry it. As long as it doesn't impact your combat performance, I don't care." She narrowed her eyes at Mogami. "It won't impact your combat performance, right?"

"Don't worry, I've practiced!" Mogami chirped. "I can fight."

Furutaka pondered for a moment more, then sighed. "Fine. But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'."

~o~

The lone Abyssal Ne-class heavy cruiser that was the centerpiece of the task force kept a constant watch on the seas. She had to remain vigilant; carried within the slow, vulnerable transports was the soul of the Volcano Fortress Demon, and she could not be risked!

Another sweep of the sea revealed something. Zooming in with it eyes, the Ne-class cruiser identified a very large flag with a rising sun symbol on it.

If it could have smirked, it would have. Kanmusu, and thoughtfully announcing their presence, too! The heavy cruiser decided to wait until they were closer, then deliver a crushing blow.

And so it was that when the Japanese task force crested the waves, the full gunpower of a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and six destroyers was unleashed all at once at Mogami.

The results were predictable.

~o~

"Mogami!" Teruzuki shouted in dismay.

"'M fine!" the heavy cruiser called back. "Flag's - ack! - Flag's in worse shape than me! I'll draw their fire, you guys go kill 'em!"

"You heard her!" Furutaka announced. "We have a golden opportunity! Get close, shutter your guns, and aim well with your torpedoes!"

~o~

The Ne-class cruiser first realized something was wrong when one of the light cruisers and four destroyers suddenly exploded. Though not truly sapient, the Abyssal was intelligent to realize what had just happened. And it was also intelligent enough to know that they would not be landing the Volcano Fortress Demon today. Growling, it prepared a run against the kanmusu; hopefully the transports could get away.

~o~

It was a frustrated task force that arrived back in Kure several hours later. They had bagged most of the warships, but the transports had gotten away. More importantly, Mogami was not in good shape. Unsurprising, considering she had taken not only the brunt of the Abyssals' initial fire, but the heavy cruiser's desperate torpedo attack. Only luck and the damage control classes her fairies had gone through kept her afloat.

And in that case, Furutaka felt confident in saying something.

"I told you so."


	80. Rule 222

**Rule 222. You want to know what happens when these rules aren't followed? Missouri snaps. Yes, this is related to last week's incident in San Diego.**

"Say that again," Boxer snarled.

Hornet looked up from her food, looking confused. "Um, that I decline your challenge?"

"The other part," Boxer corrected.

"You mean the 'because you never actually fought' part?" Hornet continued.

"The _other_ other part!"

"Oh!" Hornet said, snapping her fingers in realization. "The part where I said it's pointless because I'd beat you and I'm awesome like that!"

"I thought that's what you said," Boxer nodded, before jumping on Hornet and attempting to claw her sister's eyes off.

~o~

"Dang it, Arizona, get back here!" Kearsarge, the US Navy's crane ship, shouted as she chased after the battleship, backed up by West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. "You need to take your medication!"

"No!" she shouted back, flickers of black licking at her shoulders. "You're hiding something! And the pills make me slow, I don't wanna take 'em!"

"Sister, please, just take them!" Pennsylvania begged.

"No! I- Mwahahahahaha!"

All four shipgirls blanched as Arizona's mood abruptly shifted gears.

"Aw, shit, here we go again," West Virginia groused as she skidded to a halt.

"I, the Abyssal Martyr Empress, now claim this city for the Abyssal forces!" Abyssal Arizona cackled. "None shall stand in my way!"

Kearsarge, unlike the other shipgirls present, grinned. "Yeah, maybe. But not today." Raising up the bottle of pills, she hurled it over Arizona's - ahem, the Abyssal Martyr Empress' - head. The Abyssal barely had time to look surprised before Maury dove into the air and, in one smooth motion, snagged the pill bottle, popped the cap, and jammed it into the Martyr Empress' mouth. One involuntary gulp later, and Arizona was back, unconscious.

~o~

Missouri looked through the reports with increasing ire, a stress headache throbbing beneath her skull. Besides the scrap between Hornet and Boxer, and Arizona's ongoing issues with medication, the day had also had _yet another_ drunk and disorderly charge on Iowa, Phoenix and South Dakota doing a joint project that had resulted in _several_ explosions, Taffy 3 being... well, Taffy 3, and Pittsburgh and Baltimore getting into a knock-down, drag-out fight over a football game that ended up drawing in half the cruisers on base.

And the worst part? This was only a _somewhat_ bad day. Which meant...

The stress headache intensified as a thunderous-looking La Vallette and Raleigh stormed in, dragging an unconscious Darter as well as Harder and Dace, the latter two looking mildly panicked.

"What did they do...?" Missouri sighed wearily.

"Harder and Dace were encouraging Darter's ninja fetish again-" Raleigh began.

"Did not!" Harder denied.

"Don't try to weasel out of this!" La Vallette. "Or are you trying to tell me that you weren't videotaping Darter pouring pure capsaicin in the ice cream supplies?!"

"Yes?" Dace said hopefully.

As the argument intensified, Missouri felt something _snap_ inside her. As red colored her vision, the last thing she saw was Harder, Dace, Raleigh, and La Vallette stepping back in fear.

~o~

Nashville and Honolulu huddled behind the door to one of San Diego's storerooms as they heard the deep *wub wub* of... well, it was some kind of alarm. That's all they knew, really. For over a minute, they remained there, before _very carefully_ poking their heads out the door.

Both cruisers nearly wet themselves as they saw the hulking form of the monster that had been tearing through San Diego, the red light of its eyes thankfully scanning _away_ from them. Impossibly strong and nigh invulnerable, covered in a corrosive black aura and joined by some sort of demon that hovered over her shoulders, the only recourse had been to run and hide. At least it announced its arrival with that alarm. Slowly, the monster stomped off in the opposite direction, but it wasn't until the red light of its eyes vanished and the thumps of its footsteps stopped echoing through the corridors that Nashville and Honolulu allowed themselves to slump to the floor.

"Is... Is it gone?" Nashville whimpered.

"I-I think so," Honolulu replied, much more shaky than she would've liked. "L-Let's go. If we can get to Admiral Holloway's office, we'll be fine."

Unfortunately, as the two cruisers stepped out into the hallway, they heard the screech of rending concrete and steel, and the monster burst through the wall in front of them and crashed through its opposite number. Louisiana dove through both holes after the monster, and the cruisers saw Lexington and Saratoga tear around the corner at flank speed.

"Haul ass, girls! I don't know how long Louisiana can keep this up!"

Neither Brooklyn questioned what was going on. They just joined the two carriers in running well away from a fight that was waaaaaay out of their weight class.

~o~

Yorktown raised her sunglasses as Enterprise's phone buzzed for the third time in fifteen minutes. The three Yorktown sisters had been granted leave, and they'd taken the opportunity to go on a tour of the interior Caribbean, which, being secondary to the ongoing battles in the North Atlantic, was almost entirely Abyssal-free. Right now, Yorktown and Enterprise were sunning on the poolside of the resort they were staying at, their bikinis causing many a male passersby to fall into the pool.

"Hey, E, you gonna check your phone?" Yorktown said.

Enterprise reached over, and pressed down on the power button to turn off her phone. "Yeah, fuck that noise," she said. "I'm on vacation, I'm not gonna worry about what's going on in San Diego."

"Good call," Yorktown said.

"Hey, guys!" Hornet called out, two well-muscled, tanned men in speedos hanging off each of her arms - literally. "I'm probably not going to make it back to the room tonight, just FYI."

As Hornet strode off with her prizes, Yorktown shot a concerned glance to Enterprise. "Should we be worried?"

"Nah," Enterprise replied immediately. "Even if those guys turn out to be scumbags, she can take 'em. Now shut up and let me sunbathe in peace."


	81. Rule 224

**Rule 224. You are not allowed to destroy ice cream shops if they don't have your favorite flavor.**

Darryl Gibson sighed for what felt like the millionth time as he leaned on the counter of the freezer. The ice cream shop he worked at had been having a slow day, and after the first hour of no business he had resigned himself to boredom. Especially since his manager not only forbade cell phones during work hours, but had a nose like goddamn bloodhound for people using their phones.

It took a second for the tinkle of the doorbell to penetrate his haze of boredom, but when he did he quickly realized his day was about to get a _lot_ more interesting.

Standing in the doorway was a blonde woman, and she was seriously _smoking._ He resisted the urge to drool as he looked her over, from her _stunningly_ long legs encased in tight stockings and topped with a ruffled miniskirt, leaving that alluring strip of skin bare on her thighs, to the button-down sleeveless top that strained to contain her sizable breasts - and clearly without the aid of a bra. Finally, he looked up to a face highlighted by full, ruby-red lips, long, curly blonde hair that neatly framed her face, and a pair of designer sunglasses on her face.

Barely thirty seconds after she walked in, Darryl Gibson had already decided that he would do anything for this woman.

"C-Can I help you, Miss?" he said, inordinately proud of himself for getting through the greeting with a minimum of stutter.

"Call me Cumberland, please," the woman said, and oh God that voice, it was like the porn actresses he watched on the internet. "And you can help me by letting me have this ice cream for free."

"I-I, uh..." Darryl stammered, his sense of responsibility wrestling with his libido in his mind. "I-I can't. I'm sorry. Store policy, no discounts."

If Cumberland was disappointed by the response, she gave no sign. She merely smiled and strutted over to the counter, putting a little extra sway on her hips. "Surely you can... bend the rules a little," she purred, leaning over the counter and pulling down her sunglasses to flutter her eyelashes at him. "For me?"

Darryl gulped, unable to tear his eyes away from the... valley peeking out from under her shirt. The battle between responsibility and libido intensified, his other emotions cheering on from the sidelines. "I-I, uh... I can't..."

With a roar, libido suplexed responsibility into the ground, cracking the concrete. Darryl gave a winning smile, somehow mustering the willpower to look Cumberland in the eyes. "Sure! I don't think it'll be a problem," he said.

"Great!" Cumberland chirped, standing up and clapping her hands together. "I'll have three scoops, one vanilla, one chocolate, and one butter pecan, all on a-"

"Uh, we don't have butter pecan," Darryl interrupted. "I could substitute salted caramel, but-"

Darryl trailed off as he took in Cumberland's expression. Her previous smile had frozen in place, and she was standing absolutely stock still. "No... butter... pecan...?" she slowly ground out.

"Uh, no?" he said.

Slowly, Cumberland nodded, then turned around and left the ice cream shop, leaving behind a very confused but very pleased Darryl.

"Man, my mates aren't gonna believe this..." he said to himself.

A few hours later, the day still slow, he saw Cumberland walk back up to the ice cream shop. "Hey, Cumberland!" he shouted. "You're back! Do you want the same order as last time, ooooorrrholyshit."

The curse was well deserved, for Cumberland had her full rigging out and was pointing her 8" guns at the ice cream shop.

"Get out," Cumberland spat. "And get your boss out here, too. I'd rather not kill either of you."

Darryl got out.

Fifteen minutes later the ice cream shop was a smoldering ruin, the manager was yelling at Cumberland, and Darryl just wanted to go home.


	82. Rule 226

**Rule 226. Fights with the Abyssals are not Pokemon battles. Stop trying to catch them.**

The ocean churned and swirled, great gouts of water bursting to life as torpedoes and shells exploded and streaks of water raised by the shipgirls, Abyssals, and torpedoes. Yuubari weaved in and out, chasing shells splashes, combing torpedoes, and ducking around the battleships and destroyers dueling the Abyssal cruisers and destroyers desperately trying to screen the four Wo-class carriers fleeing the battlefield, a half-dozen heavy cruisers and two destroyer divisions in hot pursuit.

Behind Yuubari trailed destroyer divisions 29 and 30, consisting of Oite, Yunagi, Yuzuki, Asakaze, Mutsuki, Uzuki, Yayoi, and Mochisuki. A mix of older Kamikaze and Mutsuki class destroyers, none of the ships in the ersatz squadron were supposed to be in this battle. Sadly, Sendai and Desdiv 19 had run into... issues, the night before, and had been unable to join the operation. With all the other light cruisers and modern destroyers tied up on other duties, Yuubari had been ordered to collect the older destroyers and join the battle.

Of course, Yuubari wasn't stupid. She had elected to let the newer destroyers take point while they sheltered behind the hulking forms of Nagato, Mutsu, Yamato, and Musashi. Of course, if they need to go forward then they would, and Yuubari had one thing she wanted to do.

Seeing a lull in the fighting, Yuubari grinned and turned to her destroyers. "Back me up," she said. "I'm gonna use my secret weapon."

"Go for it!" Yunagi chirped, probably remembering Savo Island. "We've got your back!"

Yuubari felt tears stream down her cheeks as the rest of the destroyers gave their support. Was this what Tenryuu felt like every day? Regardless, the light cruiser surged forward in front of the battleships, her destroyers firing a stream of 4.7" shells at the Abyssals. Reaching to her belt, Yuubari plucked a small, red and white sphere off of it and tossed it at the nearest Ne-class heavy cruiser.

The Pokeball bounced off the Abyssal and landed in the water, bobbing gently in the waves. The entire battle froze as every ship involved tried to process a _goddamn Pokeball_ joining the fight.

"Damn!" Yuubari swore, snapping her fingers. "We need to weaken it first!" Jabbing a finger at the Abyssal heavy cruiser, she shouted, "Girls! Torpedoes!"

The Abyssals promptly panicked and tried to scatter as they realized just how close the destroyers had gotten, frantically trying to comb the torpedoes. However, with 48 torpedoes in the water, they couldn't dodge all of them. Three destroyers wailed in pain as torpedoes struck them, and several cruiser cried out as they took hits themselves. The battleships unleashing a blistering salvo all at once didn't help.

Yuubari took the opportunity to throw another Pokeball at one of the damaged heavy cruisers, only for it to bounce off again.

"Dammit!" the light cruiser spat as the combat ground to a halt again. "Curse you, Random Number God!"


	83. Rule 227

**Rule 227. Using a fellow shipgirl as a cudgel is a desperation move and will remain as such.**

"Gah!" Hood yelped as she staggered under a straddling salvo of shells from the Abyssal battleship in front of her. None hit, but the shock and shrapnel tossed the battlecruiser around like a toy in a tub. As the spray left by the shells dissippated, Hood took in the battlefield. It was bad.

The carriers were rapidly backpedaling, frantically firing their 4.5" and 4.7" guns at the oncoming Abyssal cruisers. Nelson and Rodney, surrounded by a hard knot of cruisers and destroyers, were keeping up a valiant defense against twice their number. Repulse, King George V, and her sisters were nowhere to be seen, aside from muzzle flashes in the distance.

And most of their screen was busy fending off the massive swarm of submarines trying to get at the capital ships.

 _"Hood!"_ the frantic voice of Admiral Collingwood over her radio. _"Hood, come in!"_

"Still alive, Admiral," the battlecruiser replied with more confidence than she felt. Firing off another salvo, she scowled as the 15" shells screamed past without hitting. "Though for how much longer I don't know. To borrow an Americanism, we are up shit creek with no paddles."

 _"We have reinforcements incoming. The Germans and Force H are two hours out, and the Force de Raid is an hour behind them. The RAF has also scrambled its F-35s, ETA thirty minutes. Can you hold out that long?"_

Hood winced as Nelson walked into another salvo, while Glorious cried out as an 8" shell struck her in the leg, dropping her to the water. "I don't think we're gonna last two _minutes_ , Admiral."

For a moment, Collingwood was silent. _"I understand. Do what damage you can."_

"Yes, sir." As the connection cut out, Hood desperately wracked her brain for any kind of advantage she could get. And then her eyes fell on Campbelltown.

 _'This is completely insane, but-'_ Another salvo from the Abyssal battleship she was dueling flew past her, close enough she could feel the passage of the wind. _'Well. Desperate times and all that.'_

Accelerating to flank speed, Hood pulled up alongside the ex-American destroyer. "Campbelltown, I have an idea that might turn this around," she said.

"Hit me," the destroyer said grimly. "Because if something doesn't change soon, we're fucked."

Hood told her.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Campbelltown exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. "Let's do this!"

~o~

Bismarck grit her teeth, pushing her straining turbines as far as they could go. Flanking her was her sister Tirpitz, and in front and behind Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, respectively. Practically the entire German Navy was out today, and Bismarck absolutely _refused_ to let this be in vain.

"I see muzzle flashes!" Scharnhorst announced, her normally ditzy personality replaced by hard professionalism.

The German force felt a collective weight lift off their shoulders. "Good," Bismarck said, grinning. "That means they're still fighting. Get ready, we're coming in hot!"

As the Germans got closer, they passed by a steady trickle of damaged and crippled shipgirls evacuating the fight. Glorious being supported by a battered Courageous; Nelson being carried piggy-back by Rodney; Dorsetshire, Suffolk, and Cumberland all holding hands in a line; and a steady stream of destroyers. Each shipgirl gave small noises of courage and support, aside from Nelson, who told them to "Give 'em hell, girls."

Finally, they came upon the actual battle site, and what a battle it was. Destroyers and light cruisers, shells and torpedoes expended, nonetheless screened the battleships and heavy cruisers as they continued to fire back. Carriers directed their planes to make dry runs, ammunition expended. And-

Bismarck blinked and rubbed her eyes, an action mimicked by Hipper and Graf Zeppelin. There, in among the Abyssal forces, was Hood, wielding what looked like a destroyer girl like only an expert spear user could. The destroyer, for her part, looked like she was having the time of her life, if the shit-eating grin on her face was any indication.

"Yo, Bisko!" Duke of York snapped, knocking the battleship out of her stunned disbelief. "Fucking _shoot something_ already!"

"R-Right!" Bismarck replied, joining with her comrades in firing at the Abyssals. And from the south she could see muzzle flashes that could only be from Renown, Sheffield, and the other surface combatants of Force H. And yet, one thought kept running through her mind.

 _'What the_ fuck _, Hood?!'_


	84. Rule 232

**Rule 232. "I have to floss my otter" is not an accepted excuse for missing a briefing.**

Admiral Hartmann tapped his foot impatiently, Prinz Eugen, Gneisenau, and Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z9 Wolfgang Zenker, Z12 Erich Giese, Z14 Friedrich Ihn, Z18 Hans Ludemann, and Z19 Hermann Kunne fidgeting in their seats as they waited for Bismarck and Scharnhorst, who were already ten minutes late to the briefing.

This continued for another ten minutes until Z9 began to outright vibrate.

"Fuck it, they can hear it later," Hartmann sighed, throwing his hands up. Tapping the remote control, he brought up a slide with a map of Greenland. "One of the weather stations in Greenland reported a possible Installation-type Abyssal making landfall about twelve hours ago..."

~o~

"And that's the plan. Any questions?"

Before any of the seated shipgirls could respond, the door swung open and admitted Scharnhorst, looking apologetic and rubbing the back of her head. "Sorry, sorry, Admiral, everyone. I had to help Lutzow floss her otter."

Gneisenau let out a groan, while Hartmann simply leveled his best glare at her, causing the battlecruiser to wilt in place. "Regardless, you still missed an important briefing. I'll fill you in later, but there will be consequences." The glare redoubled, causing Scharnhorst to start sweating. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend your ice cream privileges for the next month."

A loud gasp was emitted simultaneously from the destroyers, while the two cruisers looked aghast.

"A-Admiral, isn't that a bit... excessive?" Hipper objected slowly.

"Imagine if we had to go save England from Abyssal attack," Hartmann replied, his tone colder than the island they were about to go save. "And she missed the briefing then. Think of the consequences."

"Withdrawn," Hipper hastily replied.

The door opened again, this time much more violently, admitting a bruised Bismarck drenched in fuel oil and her clothes just barely preserving her modesty.

"Hey, Admiral, sorry I'm late," she muttered as she staggered forward and plopped bonelessly into one of the chairs. "I was going for a stroll out in the harbor when some Abyssals kidnapped me. I only just finished fighting my way out. What'd I miss?"

Admiral Hartmann opened his mouth to object - before closing it as his phone alerted him to a text message from Tirpitz. Turning on the device, he read it.

 _'To clarify: yes, my sister was kidnapped by Abyssals and had to fight her way out.'_

Hartmann blinked, and then another message popped up, this time from Berwick.

 _'Yo, Hartmann, what's with all the Abyssal corpses near Dogger Bank?'_

Hartmann blinked again, before putting on a soft smile and addressing Bismarck. "Nothing that I can't wait until you can get repaired and refueled." His gaze turned over to Prinz Eugen. "Prinz, go help Bismarck to the repair facilities. Scharnhorst, stay here. The rest of you are dismissed."


	85. Rule 235

**Rule 235. Shipgirls are no longer allowed to charter helicopter rides.**

"Wooooooow..." Zuihou breathed as she looked over the sprawling cityscape of Tokyo from the helicopter it was in. "This is amazing!"

Besides her, a trio of fairies gave assured nods, while the pilot chuckled. "First time in a helicopter, young lady?"

"This is my first time flying, period!" she exclaimed, not looking away from the window. "Ha! Suck it, Implacable."

The pilot chuckled again and turned his attention back to flying the helicopter. When he had been approached by what looked like a middle-school girl wanting to charter a helicopter ride over Tokyo, his first instinct had been to tell her to go home. Then she'd pulled out a well-stocked debit card and an ID identifying her as a kanmusu. He'd changed his tune quite quickly after that.

And you know what? Money aside, it had been worth it just to see a kanmusu, one of the mystical defenders of Japan, a ship given form, going gaga over a mere helicopter ride. Somehow, it amde it easier to think of her as a person. And that was so going on his Twitter feed.

"Desu!"

Blinking, the pilot turned to see the three fairies huddled in deep conversation.

"Desu?"

"Desu! Desu desu."

"Desu."

What were they saying? Why were they trying to be quiet. Why... were they all staring at him?

Zuiho was brought out of her awe over the cityscape by a meaty thump from behind her. Turning around, her eyes widened as she saw the pilot slumped over in his seat, unconscious, her three fairies attempting to work the controls. And not succeeding, judging from the rapidly deteriorating flight. And oh dear Tokyo Tower was awfully close, wasn't it?

Zuiho only had time to scream before the helicopter, somehow staying largely perpendicular to gravity crashed at an angle on the top of the tower, spearing through the flying machine. Thankfully, the spire didn't hit the pilot or Zuiho, but that still left them in a very precarious position, as the constant groaning of the fuselage reminded her.

"Dammit, you guys," she moaned as her fairies attempted to look apologetic.

~o~

Zuiho stumbled into her bed, wanting nothing more than to just go to sleep. Rescue had been harrowing, nearly leading to her plummeting to her likely death. The helicopter was still speared on the famous landmark, and would be for the foreseeable future. All three fairies had been grounded, likely permanently, and she had only escaped a tongue-lashing by virtue of her fairies testifying that yes, she'd had nothing to do with the hair-brained idea.

And yet, sleep didn't come. Sighing, Zuiho rolled over and grabbed her phone, bringing up the Youtube app. Maybe some short videos would help. One in particular caught her eye, and she clicked it.

Five minutes later, she was even more irritated than before, for there was Courageous jumping out of the back of a C-17.

"Son of a bitch!"


	86. Rule 237

**Rule 237. Headbutting Abyssals is a desperation move, and not part of the standard combat repertoire.**

"You girls want to know my best attack?" Tenryuu replied to the just-spoken question.

"Yeah! I bet it's some sort of wicked-cool sword move!" Ikazuchi decided. "Like- Like Raiden in Revengeance thing!"

"No, it's obviously some torpedo maneuver!" Akatsuki countered. "With bobbing and weaving and jamming it down their throats! Like a lady should!"

"I think it's more just a boost to her physical stats from protective rage. You know, like a momma bear," Hibiki monotoned.

In unison, the three destroyers all turned to their last sister, Inazuma, piercing her with expectant stares. "What do you think, Inazuma?!" Akatsuki asked enthusiastically.

"I, uh... awawawawa..." Inazuma stammered, blushing and sweating.

"Actually, it's none of those," Tenryuu replied, taking the heat off of Inazuma. "And even better, it's one I can teach you."

Akatsuki's and Inazuma's eyes lit up in sparkles at that, and even Hibiki looked at least mildly interested.

"Really!?" Ikazuchi breathed. "C-Can you show us?"

"Of course!" Tenryuu replied, reaching down and ruffling the destroyer's hair. "C'mon, let's go find a nice tree."

~o~

Fifteen minutes of searching found Tenryuu and Desdiv 6 outside the base, examining a large fir tree.

"Yup, this'll do quite nicely," Tenryuu said, rapping the bark with her knuckles. "Now, watch closely, girls, because I'd rather not have to do this twice."

Squaring her legs, Tenryuu stood in front of the tree and then grabbed it on each side of the trunk. Snorting, she reared her head back and rammed the dead center of her forehead into the tree with all the force her neck could produce. The resulting crash sent birds afluttering and caused all but Hibiki to jump.

For a moment, nobody moved.

"Uh, Tenryuu?" Akatsuki said hesitantly. "Are you al-"

The sound of splintering wood and the grim inevitability of a falling tree cut her off as the fir fell away from them with a might groan and crash. Tenryuu turned around and flashed the destroyers a grin, a purple bruise already spreading across her forehead.

"Headbutt! Do it right and it'll leave even the biggest targets at least reeling," Tenryuu explained. "And then you can hit it with torpedoes and guns or something. Just remember: center of the forehead. Any other spot'll just leave you with a nasty concussion."

Even as Akatsuki and Ikazuchi squealed in awe at their big sis and Hibiki scribbled notes, Inazuma frowned as she thought about Tenryuu and her words and what she had just done.

"Um, but Tenryuu, we don't have armored conning towers like you do, nanodesu."

Everyone froze again, and then Tenryuu smacked her forehead. "D'oh! I knew I was forgetting something. Also, ow, bruises hurt when you hit them. Don't hit them." Lowering her hand, Tenryuu gave each of the destroyers a solemn glance. "Right, slight amendment: this is a desperation move for you destroyers. Only use it when you have no other choice, because it is going to take you out of the fight. Got that?"

Akatsuki and Hibiki nodded solemnly. Ikazuchi followed suit a few moments later as Tenryuu glared at her.

"Great!" she chirped, clapping her hands together. "Now, who wants ice cream?"

"ME!"


	87. Rule 240

**Rule 240. We have no idea WHERE you got that shade of pink from, but the infirmary and R &D are reporting that it is actually giving base personnel eye cancer. Please submit all articles of clothing in that shade for summary incineration. **

"-she just dove out the window!" Cairo explained. "And I still haven't been able to wring an explanation out of her!"

"Geez," Danae replied, blushing slightly. "I mean, I can see why she'd do that, it'd be embarrassing to get caught in that situation, but-"

"AUGH!" Cairo suddenly shirked, clamping her hands over her eyes. Danae immediately reached out to help the other cruiser, but was stopped by a hand clamping around her wrist.

"For the love of God, don't look behind you," Cairo ordered firmly, pain tinging her voice. She pursed her lips as she thought of something. "Actually, just cover your eyes."

Danae, though frowning in confusion, complied. "So, why are we-" The reply was cut off by the sound of footsteps behind her and the voice that accompanied them.

"Hey, Danae, Cairo!" Sussex called out cheerfully. "Why are you covering your eyes?"

"Got something in them," Cairo grunted.

"Ow," Sussex replied, wincing in sympathy. "That's not fun. I was gonna ask you guys something, but if you have eye issues I'll go ask someone else. See ya!"

The heavy cruiser tromped off, and only after a solid five minutes did the cruisers open their eyes.

"So, what was that all about?" Danae asked as Cairo blinked owlishly.

"She was wearing some... eye-searingly pink monstrosity of a dress," Cairo grumbled. "And I do mean eye-searing." She blinked again, before sighing explosively. "Actually, could you help me to the repair shop? I think I need new eyes."

~o~

"Oi?"

"Oi! Oi oi oi."

"Hey, could you guys do me a favor?"

The assembled Fleet Air Arm fairies glanced at Sussex, then at each other, before shrugging and nodding.

"Great!" the heavy cruiser said, clapping her hands together. "Let me know how this looks, okay?"

The fairies looked on expectantly as Sussex stepped back to reveal-

"Oi!" (Augh, my eyes!)

"Oi!" (The goggles, they do nothing!)

"Oi!" (Kill it with fire!)

"Oi!" (You fool! That will only make it stronger!)

"Oi!" (It buuuuuuuurns!)

Sussex frowned as she watched the fairies roll on the floor, clutching their eyes and crying out in pain. "Maybe I should get a second opinion..."

~o~

"Okay, summarize this for me," Admiral Cunningham said wearily to his secretary ship, Effingham.

"Very well," the heavy cruiser cum light cruiser intoned. "At 1040 hours, Sussex emerged from her room, where she had been ensconced since going to bed a 1112 hours the previous day, wearing... this."

The "this" in question, named with uncharacteristic distaste, was a photograph of Sussex in the hallway outside of her room taken from the security camera. They had been lucky to get it; the camera, and every other one trained on Sussex, had burned out. Not surprising, considering the dress she was wearing was painful to look at even in photograph form.

"Sussex then proceeded down the halls, where she encountered Danae and Cairo. After a short conversation, Sussex continued along her path, while Danae and Cairo left for the repair facilities shortly afterward. Cairo is currently having her optical systems replaced."

"Did the repair workers have an estimate for when she'll be back?" Cunningham asked, praying it was short. While no Atlanta, Akizuki, or Dido, AA ships like Cairo were always in high demand.

"A few days, at most," Effingham replied, causing Cunningham to sag in relief. "Anyway, at 1055 hours Sussex arrived at the quarters for the fairy pilots. She showed them her dress, which seems to have incapacitated all the ones present."

That prompted Cunningham to groan and cradle his head in his hands. "Dammit, I'm going to have to ask Holloway or Briggs for spare pilots. Again. I hate doing that." Sitting up, Cunningham leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and indicated Effingham to continue.

"Shortly after talking to the fairies, Sussex met Prince of Wales coming back from gunnery practice. Both are currently in the repair shop, Prince of Wales for the same injuries as Cairo and Sussex for the 14" shell in the abdomen."

"And the... dress?"

"Thoroughly burned." Effingham gave a rare, if predatory, smile. "Last I heard, Georgie is tracking down whoever sold it to her in the first place."

Admiral Cunningham mirrored the smile. "Good."


	88. Rule 243

**Rule 243. Naka is BANNED from blackmailing anyone else unless international security demands it.**

"So, Naka, why did you call us together?" Yamato asked demurely, sitting in seiza.

"Yeah, what she said," California mumbled, sprawled ungainly in her chair and paying more attention to her smartphone.

"It's simple," Naka replied smugly. "During karaoke tonight, I want you two to sing a duet. Hotel California."

Yamato froze, turning completely white, while California's gaze shot up. Even as Yamato began to rock back and forth, muttering "Not a hotel, not a hotel..." under her breath, the other battleship slowly slid her phone into a pocket, giving Naka a hard glare the whole time.

"No, no, and _hell_ no," California growled. "I am sick and tired of everyone and their grandma asking me to sing that stupid song. And I'm sure Yamato agrees with me."

"Y-Yes!" Yamato said, snapping out of her stupor. "I'm sure there are plenty of other songs we could sing."

"I thought you'd say that," Naka said, her smug grin not shifting on iota. Reaching into one of her own pockets, she retrieved her phone. With a few swipes of her fingers, she queued up a video, and handed the device to California. Still scowling, California looked at the video before going completely white.

"Yes, I wonder how your fans would think if they knew that that magnificent beach tan of yours is... artificial," Naka said airily as California watched, frozen. "If this gets out on, say, my Youtube channel-"

"Alright, alright, I'll do it!" California snapped, a slight waver in her voice.

Yamato, who had been watching the proceedings with growing dismay, drew herself up to her full seated height. "Naka! You should be ashamed of yourself! I, Yamato, will not allow this to-"

"Tell anyone and I release it anyway," Naka interrupted.

Yamato frowned and made to object - when she felt a tug on her shoulder. Turning, she saw California, the smaller battleship's eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. Yamato winced, dipped her head, and turned back to Naka.

"Fine," Yamato ground out. "I, Yamato, will go along with this."

"Yay!" Naka chirped, clapping her hands. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding."

~o~

The karaoke room erupted into cheers and applause as Warspite finished a rousing rendition of Adele's "Hello".

"That was amazing, sis!" Valiant exclaimed as the battleship flushed slightly.

"I agree," Musashi said, grinning. "You really put your heart into it."

"Th-Thanks, everyone," Warspite said, embarrassed. "So, uh, who's next?"

"Oh, before we do that, I have a request!" Naka said from behind her video camera. "Why don't we have California and Yamato do a duet?"

The assembled battleships glanced at each other.

"Yamato I can see..." Musashi said uncertainly. "But how good a singer is California?"

"Heh, I think my little sister might surprise you," Tennessee said proudly. "So? You guys up for this?"

"Yeah, sure."

Tennessee blinked at the decidedly sullen and unenthusiastic response. Yamato, too, didn't seem particularly excited as she joined the American on the stage. For a moment, California simply glared at the screen, before sighing and selecting the song.

 _"On a dark desert highway~"_

"Oh, motherfucker," Tennessee breathed.

"Wait, what song is this?" Musashi asked curiously.

"Hotel California."

"Motherfucker!"

"Agreed. California would never have done this willingly," Tennessee spat through gritted teeth. "The question is, who put her up to this?"

"I think I have an answer to that."

Musashi and Tennessee nearly jumped out of their seats as they heard Enterprise's voice not a foot behind them.

"Jesus, E, don't sneak up on us like that!" Tennessee snapped, turning around to the sight of the carrier hanging upside down from the ceiling. "Wait, how'd you get in that position?"

"Don't ask," Musashi cut in, shuddering. "Kongo pulls this trick sometimes. Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Right," Tennessee drawled. "So, who was it?"

"Let me answer your question with a question," Enterprise said. "Who benefits?"

Musashi and Tennessee glanced around the room. Most of the battleships were at least enjoying the performance, and as much as it pained them to admit it, both battleships knew it was a solid performance by their sisters. None of them, though, had the sort of gleeful grin Naka was sporting.

"Naka," Tennessee and Musashi simultaneously spat. Standing up, both began stalking over to the light cruiser. Enterprise watched them leave, before ghosting after them.

~o~

Naka giggled lightly. The shame, the embarrassment - and yet still a superlative performance. Oh, Aoba was going to pay a pretty penny for this footage.

So engrossed was she in the filming that she didn't notice the approach of two shipgirls until a gloved hand clamped down on the camera and crushed it.

"Hey, what-!" The protest died in her throat as Musashi and Tennessee loomed over her. "O-Oh, h-hi, you two! What brings you over to my corner?"

Naka flinched as a black aura draped itself over the two battleships. "L-Look, we can-!"

A pair of arms circled around her waist, and with a roar, Enterprise slammed Naka into the floor in a massive suplex. The floor, unable to withstand the force, shattered like glass, burying Naka so that only her bare legs were visible. As the entire rest of the room looked on in shock, Musashi reached down and pulled the unconscious Naka out by her ankle.

"So... Now what?"

"I have some... ideas," Tennessee said huskily, licking her lips.


	89. Rule 247

**Rule 247. Apparently destroyers can hit puberty. Sorry, Tenryuu.**

Tenryuu and Tatsuta were both in their room, the former reading the latest copy of Shonen Jump and the latter some trashy romance novel, when there was a desperate pounding on the door.

 _"T-Tenryuu! Help!"_

At the plaintive wail in Ikazuchi's voice, both light cruisers immediately dropped what they were doing and dashed over to the door, throwing it open. "What's wrong, Ikazuchi?"

"I-It's Inazuma!" Ikazuchi wailed, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears and her lower lip trembling. "S-She's dying!"

"WHAT?!" Tenryuu shrieked, twitching towards the open hall. "W-We gotta get Akashi! No, wait, we need to get Inazuma to Akashi! No, that won't work, we need to-!"

"Calm down, sister," Tatsuta said serenely, clapping a hand on Tenryuu's shoulder to keep her sister from running off. "I'm sure there's a much more reasonable explanation. Now, Ikazuchi, dear, what exactly was happening to your sister?"

"S-She... She was b-bleeding... d-down _there._ "

Tenryuu's face switched from panicked to grim, while Tatsuta suddenly lurched as if she'd been stabbed in the kidneys.

"I knew this day would come," Tenryuu intoned grimly. "Don't worry, Ikazuchi, Inazuma isn't dying. It's just... look, I'll explain when you all get there. Tatsuta, you-?"

Tenryuu quirked an eyebrow as she took in Tatsuta, curled up on the floor, holding her thumb in her mouth and rocking back and forth, muttering something unintelligible under her breath.

"Never mind."

~o~

Tenryuu opened the door to Desdiv 6's room - and was immediately tackle-glomped by Inazuma.

"Tenryuu!" she wailed. "What's happening to meeeeee~?!"

"Don't worry, Inazuma, Big Sis Tenryuu will explain everything," Tenryuu said softly, stroking the destroyer's hair. Internally, she was frowning at the... soft cushioning she was feeling against her waist.

Inazuma sniffed, then looked up at Tenryuu with wide, wet eyes. "R-Really?"

"Yeah! I had to go through this myself, y'know?" Tenryuu replied, her face falling into an annoyed scowl. "Let me tell ya, getting this talk from the Kongo sisters was not fun. But anyway, let's all sit down, okay?"

Inazuma nodded and let go of Tenryuu's sweater, and was immediately tackle-glomped by Ikazuchi. Tenryuu chuckled as the two assured themselves of each other's continued existence, sitting down next to Hibiki on her bed.

"So, where's Akatsuki?" she asked curiously.

"Inazuma... tied her up into a pretzel and threw her down the laundry chute," Hibiki said, a little fear tinging her tone.

"Eesh," Tenryuu winced. "This must have started a while ago, then."

"And what is 'this'?" Hibiki asked.

"Can't answer that until we get Akatsuki," Tenryuu sighed, turning on her cell phone. "This is one conversation I'd rather not have twice."

Five minutes later, Naka dropped off a sore and trembling Akatsuki. With all four of the Akatsuki sisters, Tenryuu took a deep breath, and released it. "Alright, who here has heard the word 'puberty'?"

~o~

An hour later found Tenryuu and Inazuma outside the former's room, looking down at the still form of Tatsuta, the former in disgust and the latter in confusion.

"Jesus Christ, sis, snap out of it already!" Tenryuu punctuated her point by kicking Tatsuta in the side. "I need your help with shopping! Inazuma needs pads and bras, and you're better at this than me!"

Slowly, haltingly, and with a lot of low groaning, Tatsuta stood up and looked at Tenryuu with dead eyes. "No, please, don't make me do this," she monotoned.

"Look, Tatsuta, you either help me or I go get Kongo," Tenryuu snapped. "I don't know about you, but if I never hear another 'Maiden's Springtime of Youth!' speech it'll be too soon."


	90. Rule 251

**Rule 251. After a recent string of rash purchases, the CO has declared that a portion of everyones monthly paycheck will be set aside for saving.**

"So..." Nurnburg started as she took a long gulp of her beer. "What's the worst thing your charges have bought? Mine bought several bags of those thrice-damned gummy bears and incapacitated all the U-boats."

Detroit frowned. "Don't you have over a thousand of those things?"

"Yup."

The light cruisers at the table took in the implications of that for a second before unanimously downing their drinks.

"Lance and Lively saw an exercise machine on a TV ad," Penelope sighed through her own beer. "They bought, broke it, and threw it out in the span of two hours."

"Ha! Selfridge and Winslow just got their licenses, so they decided to buy a Mustang and a Camaro. Red and yellow, of course," Detroit shot back, before flushing as she recalled something. "I... may or may not have encouraged them to that decision. Regardless, both were wrapped around trees within a month."

"Le Terrible bought some JATO rockets and strapped them to herself," Primauguet groaned. "We're still cleaning up the building she hit."

"Espero bought a bunch of what she assumed were weapons," Scipione Africano continued, already on her fourth mug. "They weren't weapons. I don't know how _anyone_ could find that many spikes enjoyable."

Once again, the gathered light cruisers took in the implications and downed their drinks.

"Fuck it, beer isn't strong enough for this conversation," Nurnburg decided. "I'm going to order a some whiskey, who's with me?"

After a chorus of yes', Nurnburg went to flag down a waitress, while the remaining ships looked expectantly at La Argentina and Kinu. "Sooooo..." Penelope drew out. "What's your story?"

"We had a rash of destroyers buying rings for weddings. Poor Admiral Goto had to deal with Kongo incapacitating half our destroyer fleet," Kinu replied. As soon as Nurnburg returned with three bottles of Kentucky Bourbon, she grabbed one, popped it open, and began chugging. "Not to mention all the alcohol Hibiki is buying that she thinks we don't know about."

"I... think I may be able to top them all," La Argentina grimaced. "They, uh... they tried to pool their money to buy the Malvinas-" Penelope shot her a glare. "Sorry, Falklands, off this really shady internet contact. As it turns out, they bought Bolivia. If you check the papers tomorrow, there should be a headline of Mendoza being installed as president."

The light cruisers present all stared at the Argentine shipgirl for a second before downing another drink.

"Okay, I don't think we can top that," Primauguet hiccuped. She turned to the last, so far silent member of the group. "And you don't have anything to say?"

"Nyet," Krasnyi Kavkaz replied, a smug grin on her face. "Tashkent is very good disciplinarian. Plus, we put 95% of their pay in savings accounts for when they're older."

Another moment of silence, and then seven heads hit the table. "WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT?!" Scipione wailed.

"I just want to know if those girls kept the receipt," Krasnyi Kavkaz said, taking a sedate sip of her vodka.


	91. Rule 254

**New** **254\. No Yuubari you cannot create a robot bartender to give sentience to especially after the incident in Boston.**

Yuubari tapped furiously at her computer, running one last diagnostic on the program. Computers weren't her specialty, but there were plenty of spare parts floating around the internet. Hopefully her cobbled-together mess would work and give her project actual sentience.

She was far more confident in the actual hardware. Just over six feet tall, humanoid, and greatly resembling a well-dressed butler, the robot was designed for all sorts of tasks. And once she downloaded this program, the idea was that it would be able to perform tasks with only minimal input. And then she would be a billionaire! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!

Yuubari coughed, and turned back to the program, deleting several lines of code making the robot a Cleveland Browns fan. Whoever had left that in was just _cruel_. Once that was done, though, the program was ready. Yuubari moved her mouse over to the upload button, and-

The door exploded into splinters, the sound of a whistle cutting through the air.

"Yuubari! Cease this at once!" Kirishima barked, blowing into her whistle for emphasis.

"Aww, come on, Kirishima!" Yuubari whined. "I was so close!"

"Be that as it may," Kirishima countered. "The UN has banned further research after the incident in Boston."

Yuubari quirked an eyebrow. "Why, what happened in Boston?"

~o~

"Brady, no! Stop!" South Dakota shouted.

"Put New York and the tea down!" Phoenix added.

The robot in question, which had ditched its football pads for an Iroquois costume, merely sneered at the two shipgirls and pressed down harder on the trussed-up New York.

 _"Pathetic hybrids!"_ he shouted, holding a crate of tea above his head. _"Today, history shall repeat itself, and justice! Will! Be! Served!"_

With that, the robot pitched the crate into the water hard enough to break it open.

"Dammit!" South Dakota shouted, tearing at her hair. "Please tell me Boston is still stalling Kongo!"

The sound of honking horns and screeching tires tore their gaze away from the robot on the Constitution, and to a nearby intersection where Kongo was steadily tromping forward, murder in her eyes, steam flowing from her mouth, and a series of footprints in shattered pavement marking a trail behind her. Oh, and Boston futilely hanging off her back.

"We're fucked, aren't we," South Dakota whimpered.

"Sure looks like it," Phoenix concurred.

Kongo stepped down onto the water, shrugged off Boston like she wasn't even there, and began steaming towards the form of the Constitution.

~o~

Quick, but brutal, desu. First, star shell to blind.

And now, Type 3 high explosive, full salvo.

 _And how about if I put your precious tea in between?_

Oh, this one's good. In that case, aim 6" to the legs, then 30 degree lob as he falls.

 _New York should do nicely as a shield. Your admiral wouldn't like an allied ship being hurt._

 _And while you retarget, a crate to the face to distract._

Slow, unguided, easy to dodge. And it leaves you vulnerable to a salvo of 14" AP.

 _I could say the same to you. A simple matter to-_

Salutations, motherfuckers!

 _Wait, wha-?_

Wait, wha-?

~o~

Yuubari winced as she heard the end of the story. "She put _Kongo_ in traction?!"

Her disbelief was understandable. Outdated and eccentric she may be, Kongo was the oldest shipgirl in the fleet. And she'd gone her whole career on the front lines; she was tremendously skilled and experienced. And that's not counting the near-psychic state she seemed to enter when sufficiently pissed off.

Still, if any shipgirl could take her down like that, it was Old Ironsides herself.

"Yes," Kirishima replied, frowning disapprovingly. "The robot was wrecked during the fight, and is scheduled to be melted down."

"Well, alright," Yuubari complied, if reluctantly. "I'll delete the program. It was a messy kludge anyway. Mind if I keep the chassis, though?"

Kirishima hummed in thought. "I don't see why not. Without the software, it's an expensive mannequin."

Neither ship noticed the supposedly inactive robot turn its head towards them...


	92. Rule 257

**Rule 257. Nagato, you may not kidnap Rodney and take her home with you.**

"Sister..." Mutsu groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Why is Rodney sitting in your room having a staring contest with Hoppo-chan?"

"Oh, is that who she is?" Nagato replied in that cheerful tone of voice Mutsu had come to associate with her "Nagamon" persona. "I found her wandering around Hainan Island looking all lost and confused, and I just had to bring her home with me!"

"Right..." Mutsu bit out, slowly backing out the door. "I, uh, just remembered that I need to make a phone call. G'bye!"

Nagato ignored her sister as she beat a hasty retreat, focusing instead on her two charges. Oh, they were just so adorable! Even their little pouting glares were adorable!

The black auras rising around them were _not_ adorable, though. And oh dear, was that the spirit of Horatio Nelson rising behind Rodney?

As the spirit of a red-eyed Seaport Princess rose from behind Hoppo-chan, Nagato began to consider that she may have made a mistake.

~o~

"Come on, come on, pick up!" Mutsu muttered into her phone as it rang.

 _"Hello?"_

"Nelson, just the shipgirl I was looking for!" Mutsu exclaimed in relief. "Look, I found your sister, she's in Yokosuka, and she's safe."

 _"Yokosuka?! What the hell is she- No. Don't tell me your sister-"_

"I apologize _profusely_ for my sister. I had no idea she'd done this until I found Nelson in her room." Mutsu raised her voice to cut off the shouted reply. "Look, we can worry about that later. Right now she's face-to-face with Hoppo-cha- I mean, the Northern Ocean Princess, and she was actually _glaring_ at her. Get her as soon as you can, because that is a goddamn powder keg waiting to happen."

For a moment there was nothing but silence on the other line. _"Mutsu..."_ Nelson groaned. Mutsu could just see her rubbing her temples. _"Why does your sister have a goddamn_ Princess-class Abyssal _living with her?!"_

"I've given up questioning that," Mutsu replied wearily. "I recommend you do the same. Are you coming or-?!"

There was a colossal roar - "Oraoraora!" "Mudamudamuda!" - that shook the building, followed shortly by the sounds of splintering concrete. Mutsu turned around as a shrill scream dopplered towards her, and the battleship traced Nagato as she was hurled up and out of her room. Closer, closer Nagato came, until Mutsu neatly sidestepped and Nagato planted face-first into the concrete.

"I'll call you back."

 _"Mutsu, no, don't you bloody-!"_

~o~

"-Dare!" Nelson looked incredulously at her phone. "She hung up on me!"

"To Yokosuka?" Renown asked.

"To Yokosuka!"

Nelson and Renown arrived a few hours later to see a good chunk of the base smoldering rubble, a battered and bruised Nagato embedded upside down to her waist in the concrete pier, Mutsu cradling a sobbing Abyssal girl in her arms, and Yamato _sitting_ on Rodney, who for her part was hissing at the Abyssal like some oversized cat.

Though they had to admit, the Abyssal was quite cute.

"What the hell happened here?" Renown breathed.

"I don't even care anymore, let's just grab Rodney and blow this taco stand," Nelson grumbled.


	93. Rule 258

**Rule 258. O'Bannon's potato cannon was bad enough, New Orleans. We are not letting you build a coconut cannon.**

New Orleans glanced curiously over the shoulder of her sister Minneapolis. The heavy cruiser was tapping furiously at her tablet, which from what New Orleans could see was launching... explosive coconuts... at zombies... while on a pirate ship.

New Orleans resolved then and there to get this game.

"Hey, Minneapolis, watcha playing?" she asked, leaning on the back of the couch.

"Oh, hey, New Orleans," her sister mumbled in reply, glancing up before going back to her game. "This is Plants vs. Zombies 2. Right now I'm just seeing how many Coconut Cannons I can fit onto the map before I beat the level."

"Ah, gotcha," New Orleans nodded, before ambling off to buy the game herself.

The next three days were a whirlwind of dismembered corpses, explosions, lightning bolts, and peas everywhere. Not to mention not a lot of sleep. By the time she finished the game, she knew one thing: she had to have it.

~o~

"This circuit won't work," South Dakota decided as she scanned the diagram.

"Maybe if we route it like... this?" Phoenix replied, tracing the route with her fingers.

"That could work," South Dakota hummed. "But we won't know until-"ntally shrugging

"South Dakota! Phoenix! I need your help!" New Orleans announced, causing the two mad scie- *ahem*, engineers, to jump in surprise. "I need you to make me a Coconut Cannon!"

Light cruiser and battleship glanced at each other, before mentally shrugging. "Sure. Coconuts are sturdier than potatoes, so-"

"Nononononono!" New Orleans interrupted, holding her arms up in an x. "Not that kind of Coconut Cannon! I mean one like this!"

Tapping her tablet a few times, New Orleans thrust it into their faces, the Wiki page for the Coconut Cannon displayed proudly. Phoenix and South Dakota looked it over for a few minutes, humming and making the occasional grunt.

"Well," South Dakota stated, handing the tablet back to New Orleans. "This is kinda out of our expertise. We're the more mechanical kind of engineer."

"That said," Phoenix added at New Orleans' downcast face. "We know some people who would be better at this sort of project. We'll put in a few calls and get back to you, okay?"

Nodding, New Orleans took her tablet back and walked back to her dorm.

~o~

Lorraine and Bretagne didn't even look up as Provence staggered into the common room, trailing smoke and covered in duck feathers. They were very used to Provence's duck experiments, and secretly glad she hadn't moved onto her planned experiments with swans, golden eagles, and eventually: emus.

They shuddered in unison at that thought. Australia had once brought one with her on a visit. How she controlled the damn thing was beyond them.

That said, they did have a message for Provence, so they couldn't ignore her entirely.

"Yo, sis, you got a message from San Diego," Bretagne called out.

Provence gave a grunt of acknowledgement as she continued to her room. A shower and a fresh change of clothes later, and the battleship, feeling much more human, sat down on her bed and turned on her phone to check her email.

Five minutes later, Provence was furiously scribbling notes with one hand and ordering a coconut palm on Amazon with another. She had SCIENCE! to do.

Ten minutes after that, the Toulon admiral shut that down. Hard.


	94. Rule 268

**Rule 268. Practice rounds are paint filled to help check accuracy, not hold paint wars around the base.**

"Alright, Johnston, I'm here!" O'Bannon called out as she opened the door to the warehouse her sister had called them to. "Would you mind telling me why-!" Mountains of shipgirl-sized 5" shells and their propellant casings greeted her. "What the hell?"

"Hey, O'Bannon, you made it!" Johnston exclaimed, sliding down one of the mountains of shells and causing her sister to flinch reflexively. "Hoel and Heermann are in the back loading up, so get going!"

"Johnston, you crazy idiot! You don't just go sliding down a pile of _explosive shells_ like that!" O'Bannon snapped as Johnston reached the bottom of the pile.

"Oh, calm your tits, they're just practice shells," Johnston scoffed, rolling her eyes. Leaning down, she picked up a shell and cracked it open, causing paint to spill out of the cavity.

"Oh," O'Bannon said simply before building up another head of steam. "Okay, that just begs the question of what the hell you need thousands of practice shells for."

"Oh, that's simple," Johnston replied as she had her fairies lower her rigging onto her. "We're going paintballing."

~o~

"Woo! Hot damn this is fun!" O'Bannon whooped as she, Johnston, Heermann, and Hoel ran, giggling, from a very pissed-off, paint-soaked Iowa. Well, more pissed-off than usual.

"Get back here, you little brats, so I can slap ya silly!" she shouted after them.

"Nuh-uh! You gotta catch us first," Hoel shot back.

"Wow, Iowa's really pissed off," Heermann observed.

"How do ya figure?" O'Bannon replied.

"She's not swearing."

"Shut up, you guys!" Johnston cut in, pointing to the trio of shipgirls rounding a corner just ahead. "Targets at two o'clock!"

San Francisco, Astoria, and Quincy barely had time to react before the destroyers splattered them with paint in passing. They were then promptly barreled over by a charging Iowa.

"Uh, guys?" O'Bannon said nervously. "We're not shaking her."

"This way!" Hoel suddenly shouted, ducking around a corner and diving into a bush. Her sisters joined her, and not a moment too soon as Iowa thundered past. Hidden in the bush, the destroyers were thus quite mystified when Iowa came to a literally screeching halt.

"Dear sister... why are you covered in paint?"

"It's Missouri!"

"Shut up, you idiot!"

"Taffy 3 and O'Bannon hit me with some practice rounds," Iowa explained, growling. "Now could you move? I need to go catch those rugrats and teach them a lesson."

"I think not. _You_ are getting that paint cleaned off. Come one."

"Wha- Maddy! Dammit, let go!"

The destroyers risked a peek above the shrub to see Missouri hauling Iowa off by the ear, the latter trying - and failing - to get her sister to let go.

"We're clear!" Johnston whispered. "Let's get back to work."

Nodding, the destroyers jumped out of the shrub, and headed _away_ from the two battleships, looking for new targets. They found two rather quickly.

Unfortunately, they were not the usual kind of target.

"Say hello to my little friends!" Honolulu quoted, locking her 6" guns on the suddenly-frozen destroyers. Beside her, Boise just grinned, letting her "Mo' dakka fo' life" T-shirt and 6" guns do the talking.

"Shit! Scatter!" O'Bannon, a veteran of numerous clashes with British light cruisers, snapped, diving to the side. The Taffies, used to slower-firing 8" and 14", didn't react fast enough to avoid getting splattered with paint.

"Hahahahahahahaha!" Honolulu laughed maniacally. "Get rekt!"

Suddenly, she felt five light impacts and wetness on her left side. "What- aww."

Paint dripped down the cruisers side, but luckily O'Bannon did not evade the return salvo from Boise.

"You need to stop gloating when you think you've won," Boise said in her usual monotone.

"Oh, shut up."


	95. Rule 271

**Rule 271. Do not try to imitate California's admittedly impressive moonwalk. Unless you have a turboelectric drive you're liable to break an ankle trying.**

"Alright, now that the orange pest is gone," Tennessee said. "California has prepared her best performance."

After suplexing Naka through the floor, the battleships had found it necessary to decamp to an intact karaoke room. While transferring, California had vanished, saying she had something she wanted to try. And now, after a hilariously off-key rendition of "Alestorm" from Iowa, she was ready.

"So, wait, what is California doing?" Mutsu asked.

Suddenly, the lights cut out for a few seconds. And then one of them came back on, shining on the karaoke machine. There stood California, clad in a white suit and hat with a navy-blue shirt, the hat pulled down over her eyes with her left hand, clad in a white glove. Her dark hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and she was leaning like she was against a railing, except there was no railing.

And then Michael Jackson' "Smooth Criminal" popped up on the screen.

The shipgirls present, aside from a smug, smirking Tennessee, watched in awe as California not only did a passable impression of the King of Pop's high voice, but also glided across the stage in a flawless Moonwalk. And more than anything, it was the coordination that was impressive; the moves, the words, everything was on time.

Finally, the song came to an end, and California gave a deep bow as her audience applauded.

"Goddamn!"

"That was so awesome!"

"Hey, I could do that, too!"

The room fell silent as everyone stared at Hiei. Well, except for California and Tennessee. They just burst out laughing.

"Hey! What's so funny?" Hiei fumed.

"Sorry, it's just..." California choked out, wiping a tear from her eye. "Well, feel free to try. Just don't blame me if you sprain your ankle."

"Hey!" Hiei snapped, surging to her feet. "I was the Emperor's ship! I can dance any dance, just you watch!"

"You're not going to stop her?" Haruna whispered to Kongo.

"No, this will be a good lesson for her," Kongo replied softly.

"It's not a matter of _skill_ ," California shot back, now getting somewhat annoyed. "You just don't have the hardware."

"Just start up the song again!" Hiei snapped, grabbing the mic.

Shrugging, California sat down to watch the show.

As the song started up, Hiei closed her eyes and began attempting the dance. Key word being _attempting_. It was quite clear that she simply couldn't perform the backwards motion properly, but she grit her teeth and kept trying. Her moves became more frantic, and she gritted her teeth, and yet she just couldn't do the move. Something had to give.

And with a snap of cartilage, something did.

"Argh!" Hiei cried out as she fell to the ground clutching her ankle. Kongo was there in a flash, examining the afflicted body part. For a minute, she poked and prodded, each contact eliciting a grunt of pain from her sister. Finally, Kongo stood up and sighed.

"Well, that's a torn Achilles, which means at least a few days of dockwork," Kongo announced. "I assume it's your turboelectric drives that enable you to pull it off?"

"Yup!" California smugly confirmed. "Any of the Big Five or either of the Lexington sisters could do it if they wanted to learn."

"Wait, what the hell does propulsion have to do with this?!" Hiei snapped.

"Turboelectric drives allow them to steam backwards at full power, and indefinitely," Kongo answered, smiling as recognition spread across Hiei's face. "Yes, I see you grasp the implications."

"Whatever!" Musashi interrupted, grabbing the mic. "It's my turn now!"


	96. Rule 272

**Rule 272. All Royal Navy shipgirls are to stop trying to smuggle rum into the barracks. The rum ration has been discontinued; deal with it.**

Admiral James Collingwood, the latest in a long line of British Admirals of that name, sighed heavily as he looked over the Scapa Flow duty board, which featured a laundry list of crossed-out names. "There is something wrong with our bloody ships..." he grumbled.

Looking over the board again, two names stood out: the light carriers Venerable and Vengeance. Despite the fact that their status as the only two jet-capable shipgirls in the world kept them very busy, they continued to take mission after mission with no issues. And he couldn't exactly blame the problems on malingering; I mean, who was going to accuse Hood, Belfast, or Victorious of that? Clearly the two carriers were doing something different, and he intended to get to the bottom of it.

~o~

"The rum ration," Collingwood stated in flat disbelief. "They're down because they've not been getting the _rum ration?!_ "

"That's our best guess, mind you," Venerable replied. "It's the only difference we can think of. None of the other girls lasted long enough for it to be discontinued."

"Plus there aren't any bars nearby, so the girls can't make subsititutes," Vengeance pointed out. "In Portsmouth or Alexandria, hell, even Gibraltar, they can take a bit of leave and either hit a bar or buy some rum themselves."

Collingwood groaned and rubbed his temples. No way in _hell_ would the Admiralty re-approve the rum ration. "Okay, so what do I do?"

The two light carriers shrugged in unison. "Got me," Venerable answered. "We've been waiting for them to work through the alcohol withdrawal, but that hasn't been working."

"Right..." Collingwood sighed. "Well, thanks anyway, girls."

~o~

The briefing room was... full. Too full. Most of the girls present had been unfit for action the previous day. Something was up. And that rum bottle poking out of Victorious' bag seemed as good a place as any to start.

"Venerable!"

The light carrier stopped and turned to look at him. Collingwood stared pointedly at Victorious' bag, and thankfully the light carrier got the message, flashing a thumbs up back at the Admiral.

For a few days, nothing happened, but then one night he got a knock on the door.

"Come in!" he announced.

In walked Victorious, followed by Venerable and a pair of orbiting fairy-piloted Super Entendards, Exocets prominently slung under their fuselages.

"H-Hi, Admiral," she said nervously.

"Do you want to tell him about how you've been smuggling rum with Wasp, or should I?"

Suddenly, Victorious threw herself at Howe's feet, clutching his leg. "Please!" she pleaded. "Bring it back! We neee-heeeeed it!"

"I'm sorry, Victorious, but I can't. And smuggling is a serious crime." Furiously, Collingwood considered his options. "However, if you enroll in a new class we're setting up, I will be prepared to overlook it."

"I'll do it!" Victorious decided immediately while Venerable mouthed _'We are?'_ at Collingwood. "I won't let you down, Admiral!"

~o~

"Welcome, you maggots, to Diadem's class on how to beat lifelong alcoholism!"


	97. Rule 274

**Rule 274. Constitution is not allowed to go around capturing the British shipgirls. We are allies with them now. You should know this!**

HMS Guerriere took in the sea and sky of the Mid-Atlantic. One of the many sail girls accidentally summoned by the British, she and her fellow sail girls had been assigned to ASW duty in the more remote corners of the Atlantic. With sail power they could stay on station for months on end, and their low speed wasn't nearly as much of a problem against submarines as against surface ships. The tipping point, though, had been Indefatigable deciding to strap a sonar set and some Hedgehogs to her rigging. To everyone's surprise, it had worked. And sail girl volunteers had been quickly collected, rebuilt, and sent off.

And the frigate had to admit, it was quite pleasant duty. Just her, the sea, and maybe the occasional submarine. So relaxing...

"Oi!"

Guerriere was brought out of her musings by the fairy in her crow's nest barking out a sighting of sails. Which was odd; the other sail girls were assigned specific ASW boxes, and there should have been no reason for her to see one of her comrades. This bore investigating.

Adjusting her sails, Guerriere set a course for the other set of sails. It was slow going, considering the other girl had the weather gauge, but eventually she - or rather, her fairy - could make out the other sail girl.

"Oi! Oioioioioi!"

The panicked babbling the fairy descended into was unexpected and worrying. "What's wrong?"

"Oi, oi oi oi, oi!"

Guerriere paled, then paled further when she got a good look herself of the sail girl. It was, after all, a very familiar and very unwelcome face. The frigate found herself wishing she still had her cannons, despite the fact that it wouldn't do any good.

"Come to mama!" Constitution crooned as she bore down on Guerriere. The British frigate considered her options, and quickly came to a dispiriting conclusion.

 _'Can't win. Can't run.'_

At that thought, a white flag popped up from her crow's nest.

~o~

"I just captured Guerriere, Indy," Constitution bragged over the phone. "That's three now."  
 _  
"Really,"_ Indefatigable drawled. _"Because I've got four now. Say hello to Constitution, Astree."_

 _"H-Hallo?"_

"Motherfucker!" Constitution snapped, causing the three British frigates behind her to huddle even closer. They huddled _still closer_ as Constitution's angry face morphed into a thoughtful one. "Say, if I capture you, would I get four points or five?"

 _"I say I'd like to see you try."_ The voice on the phone was practically dripping with condescension.

"Well then, all I can say is this, Indefatigable," Constitution smirked. "Put on your war 'stache, because I'm coming for you."

~o~

Thankfully, Victory managed to break up the fight and free the captured frigates. After all, the fight would've happened at tea time, and she can't have that.


	98. Rule 279

**Rule 279. Submarines are not to play the "Jaws" theme during exercises.**

"Alright, girls!" USS George barked to the gaggle of Japanese destroyers in front of her. "Time for ASW 101! Any questions?"

A hand raised up from the crowd. "You, over there!"

"Um, shouldn't England be teaching this class?" Fubuki asked.

"As much as I love that girl, she's also kind of a reclusive nut," George replied, sighing. "But don't worry, you don't get to be the world's greatest ASW ship's wingmate by collecting bottle caps!"

"Why do we gotta learn ASW?! We're perfectly fine at it!" another voice barked from somewhere in the crowd.

"Two aircraft carriers, a battleship, four heavy cruisers, and six million tons of merchant shipping say otherwise!" George countered. "Alright, enough lollygagging! Hit the water!"

The destroyers streamed onto the water, unconsciously drifting into ragged ASW formations.

"Hmm, not bad," George mused as she touched down on the water herself. "But not good enough! Tighten up that formation!"

The destroyers hastily moved to tighten up their formations. George nodded and watched. "Not bad, not bad. We've got a foundation. But that won't stop me from drilling formation into your heads until it's instinctive! Now, AA formation!"

The destroyers dutifully shifted. "ASW!"

Chaos ensued as the Japanese attempted to shift positions, only to run into and over each other.

"Again!"

This continued, the chaos lessening with each repetition, before George barked out "Surface!"

The destroyers dutifully switched to a surface formation as San Francisco, Pensacola, Juneau, and Pennsylvania arrived.

"Alright, next lesson!" George barked. "Your job is to screen these ships! We have submarines already lurking with paint torpedoes. If any of your ships get paint on them, you lose!"

*dun dun*

"Wait, what's that sound?" Juneau said, tilting her head.

*dun dun*

"It sounds familiar..." San Francisco mused.

*dun dun dun dun dun dun*

"Oh, goddammit, Harder," George groaned, pinching her nose as the Japanese destroyers glanced around fearfully.

"SURPRISE!" Harder shouted as she porpoised out of the water - and was promptly kicked in the face by Yukikaze, Yuudachi, and Shigure simultaneously. "Ow, my face."

"Okay, Harder, lose the Jaws theme," George sighed. "And what are you all standing around for?! Get ready!"

~o~

England didn't look up from stroking the Boston Terrier in her lap when George opened the door and walked in. "How were the lessons?"

"Well, they need quite a bit of work," George sighed as she flopped down onto her bed. "You wouldn't have had the patience. Honestly, the biggest problem besides technology is the fact that they're all a little too eager."

"Oh?" England asked as she let her dog hop down, and her tortoiseshell cat took his place. "What do you mean?"

"I mean they have a bad habit of breaking formation to go after submarines," George replied. "Too much focus on killing submarines; they don't understand that preventing your charges from getting torpedoed is just as important."

England's face scrunched up in confusion. "It is?"

"And that's another reason why I'm teaching this class, not you," George chuckled. "Now, how to break that habit..."

~o~

The next day, Harder was just about to dip into the water when George caught her attention.

"Yo, George, what's up?" the submarine asked.

"I know I told you not to use the Jaws them," George answered. "But I need you to use it. We need to bring home just how bad their Leeroy Jenkins habit is."

Harder grinned, like a shark that's spotted a bare behind. "Gladly."

~o~

"Holloway," Goto bit off into the phone. "Whichever one of your submarines played the Jaws theme during that lesson pack, I want _words._ My destroyers keep blowing up sharks, and the environmental nutjobs are riding my ass for it!"


	99. Rule 280

**Rule 280. Please stop shooting down the Predator drones.**

"Enterprise! I have an incoming bogey twenty miles out!"

The fleet carrier swore colorfully as Chicago let out a light whimper. "Dammit, Wichita, how'd it get so close?!"

"Hey, don't blame me, this thing's tiny!" Wichita shot back.

Wisconsin, steaming just behind Enterprise, frowned at that.

"Is it transmitting an IFF or anything? Have you hailed it?" Enterprise asked, rapid-fire, keeping a close eye no her own radar plot.

"Nothing! It's not responding!"

"Wait, how small are we-"

"Shoot it down," Enterprise ordered. As one, the ships in their small task force turned their 5" guns at the bogey, Chicago with perhaps a bit of vindictive glee. Soon, the bogey was gone from the radar screens, and visible to the Mark 1 eyeball as a plume of smoke trailing down to the water.

"Well, so much for that," Enterprise summarized proudly, only to frown as Wisconsin started steaming towards the plume. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I need to confirm something, won't be long," the fast battleship replied before picking up speed. Enterprise, for her part, simply sighed and lofted a few more fighters up. It wasn't long before Wisconsin returned, carrying a blackened, shrapnel-ridden device.

"Great job, you guys," she drawled, grinning. "You just shot down a CIA Predator drone."

Wichita and Chicago flushed, while the destroyers simply looked confused.

"Fucking spooks," Enterprise spat with surprising venom.

"Eh, what're you gonna do?" Wisconsin said, shrugging. "Right hand, left hand, and all that jazz."

"What's a Predator drone?" Benson asked innocently.

"Think a really big RC hovercraft with a camera and maybe a missile slung under it," Wisconsin replied. "I flew some older drones during Desert Storm, and oh man the stories I could tell!"

As the task force continued, the destroyers listened with rapt attention to Wisconsin's story about Iraqi soldiers surrendering to an unarmed drone. They _almost_ missed the air attack, but with Wisconsin and Enterprise almost wasn't enough.

~o~

Admiral Goto stared at Akagi and the nearly-unrecognizable fuselage she'd been munching on like a hunk of chocolate. Akagi, for her part, was doing an impressive impression of a whitetailed deer staring down an oncoming semi.

"Akagi..." Goto said slowly. "Is that a Predator drone?"

"... No?" Akagi said hopefully, before wilting under the hard glare Goto gave her. "... Yes."

"And... why are you eating it?" Goto continued.

"Everything looks good on a diet."

Goto raised a finger and opened his mouth - before letting both fall. "Well, can't argue with that. You do need the bauxite. That said, I think it's time to end this diet."

"But Admiral!" Akagi whined. "I still weigh 36,500 tons, and I wanna get below 33,000!"

"No buts!" Goto firmly denied. "If you're shooting down Allied aircraft for sustenance, then you're not eating enough!"

 _'Never thought I'd say that to Akagi, of all people,'_ Goto mused to himself.


	100. Rule 285

**Rule 285. The gunnery range is open to all for use at all times, but kanmusu must have supervision by at least one officer while they are training.**

"Battleship Howe, reporting for gunnery training!" the battleship announced imperiously as she strode onto the gunnery range. The _conspicuously empty_ gunnery range.

"Huh, where is everybody?" she wondered, before shrugging and getting to work. Aiming her 14" cannons, she sighted down her rangefinders, adjusted the elevation - and fired. She grinned as several explosions tore up the dirt around the 1000-yard target, but she didn't allow herself to stop. 1000 yards was phone booth range. Time to keep shooting.

5000 yards, 8000, 10,000. The battleship nailed the targets, easy peasy. 12,000 required more adjustment and concentration. 15,000 required a second salvo. And at 20,000 she had her first outright miss. As in, the shells sailed well past the target. Biting her tongue, Howe adjusted and fired again, only for the shells to fall short and to the right. Another adjustment, and the target was obliterated.

This process was repeated at 23,000 yards, but 25,000 was another matter entirely. Radar horizon was starting to get to be an issue, and ballistics were a tad harder to calculate than more direct fire. Naturally, the first salvo wasn't anywhere near the targets. Nor the second salvo, or third, or fourth.

Growling, Howe adjusted her guns again, and fired, only to suppress a scream as the shells missed by a wide margin again.

"For fuck's sake!" she howled, before snapping off one more salvo. To her frustration, this one was also wide. To her dismay, it hit something else. Something important. She could only watch as the cluster of 1590-lb shells slammed into the range house and exploded, turning the building into so much shrapnel.

Howe slowly edged away from the firing range, crossing her fingers that no one had been in it. Honestly, the explosion made it hard to tell. So when no one came boiling out of the wreckage demanding an explanation, she took the opportunity to turn tail and bolt.

As such, she didn't see Barham kick her way out of the rubble and cough out a few lungfuls of soot.

~o~

It took three days before Howe felt comfortable showing her face at the range again. This time, the range was rather more crowded. Malaya and Rodney were there, practicing, as well as Sussex. More surprising was the bored-looking lieutenant sitting on a chair doing something on his phone.

"Hey, Rodney, why's he here?" Howe whispered to the fellow battleship.

"Well, after someone blew up the range house," Howe flushed but didn't say anything. "Admiral Collingwood assigned him to keep an eye on things. Apparently, we were lucky that only Barham was in the range house; someone could have died."

Nodding, Howe walked up to her spot on the range, resolving to never mention her involvement to the older battleship.


	101. Rule 287

**Rule 287. Carriers will refrain from allowing their aircraft to fly near the main headquarters. CO and the staff are tired of having their windows buzzed.**

Admiral Hartmann dozed contentedly in his room. It was a Sunday, he had a rare day off, and he was taking the opportunity to catch up on sleep, at least a little. And with his orders not to be disturbed short of a Abyssal Princess, he was looking forward to an uninterrupted day of relaxation.

Too bad his wife had divorced him years ago.

*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-*

Hartmann rolled over, grumbling in his sleep, as a piercing whine filled the air. When it didn't go away, he grabbed a pillow and jammed it over the side of his head.

* **EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!***

*VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV-*

The sound of a piston engine joined with the blaring of Jericho Trumpets finally forced Hartmann to haul himself out of bed, just in time to see a Stuka, with its distinct gull wings, fly past his window. And there was only one shipgirl in the world who flew Stukas.

"GRAF!"

~o~

Ooyodo was working on some paperwork, as well as an Excel spreadsheet on fuel consumption, when she sensed... something. Almost as if her radar was trying to tell her something, but her radar was off inside the base.

The mystery was solved when she heard the buzz of a piston engine coming from Admiral Goto's office, followed by a string of swear words... in English.

"- GRAVEL-CRUNCHING SALT-HUFFING MARINE-LOVING-!"

The secretary ship winced. This was a bad one.

Opening the door to Goto's office, she saw two things. First, the Reppu fighter flying off into the distance. And second, Goto's blueberry muffin lying smushed on the floor. No wonder he was swearing hard enough to make Iowa blush.

Ooyodo leaned back against the door, waiting for the outburst to subside. Finally, Goto plopped down in his chair, panting.

"Find Nagato," he ordered through gritted teeth. "And make damn clear that she is to educate Hoppo-chan on not buzzing the base with her planes."

"Yes, sir," Ooyodo replied, before ducking out of the office again. Time to find Kongo; she'd need her help to confront Nagato in full Nagamon mode.

~o~

"So," Admiral Holloway said idly as he watched dozens of fairy-piloted Hellcats and Corsairs duel in the skies above Naval Station San Diego from his office window. "What set this off?"

"I believe," Enterprise reported as she also watched the furball. "That some of Intrepid's fairies got in an argument with the Marine fairies over the merits of the Hellcat versus the Corsair, and I assume they decided to settle it the old-fashioned way."

"By shooting each other with paintballs," Holloway finished. His eyes tracked to the wing of Bearcats diving into the aerial battle. "And I assume those are Antietam's?"

"Yup," Enterprise confirmed, taking a sip of her coffee. "We're lucky Midway is on escort duty near Samoa, otherwise I don't think her fairies would be able to resist bringing in their Phantoms and Hornets."

"Yeah, that's the absolute last thing we need," Holloway agreed. "A bunch of supersonic fighters breaking windows and throwing missiles."

Carrier and admiral watched for a few more minutes, even as one Corsair broke off from the pack. Clearly damaged, and the pilot clearly struggling to control the plane, it hit the edge of a building and flipped once, before the canopy broke open and the plane flung its pilot straight towards them. Neither flinched, either at the Corsair exploding into an avgas fireball, nor at the fairy pilot hitting the window and then sliding down.

"Right, I've had enough," Holloway decided. "Get Yorktown and end this."

"Yes, sir."


	102. Rule 290

**Rule 290. Washington and San Francisco are not to be left in the same room on Sundays.**

"-And Wilson takes a knee, taking us to the end of the game. Another painful defeat for the San Francisco 49ers, 38-3."

"Hey, remember back in 2013?" Washington said smugly to a rather gloomy San Francisco. "Back when everyone thought San Francisco/Seattle was the next great NFL rivalry?"

"Shut up," San Francisco intoned dully.

"And then Jed York got his panties in a bunch, fired Jim Harbaugh, and kicked off the offseason from hell," Washington continued.

"Shut _up_ ," San Francisco repeated with more heat.

"And then you hired a washed-up Chip Kelly and drafted Jared Goff, and didn't that turn out well for you guys!"

" _Shut up._ "

"And here we are, with our three Super Bowl rings, and a nice rivalry with the Panthers, while the 49ers are made of suck and-"

"GAAAAAAAAAH! SHUT UP, YOU STUPID SEACHICKEN!" San Francisco howled, diving onto the battleship, fingers digging into her soft unarmored portions.

~o~

"Come on, come on, Jeffrey!" Chicago chanted, while Wisconsin and Milwaukee watched, gripping the couch cushions in a white-knuckled embrace. "Come on-!"

"Intercepted! The Green Bay Packers have won the NFC North!"

"Yes!" the two Wisconsinites whooped, high-fiving each other, while Chicago collapsed bonelessly into the couch. "The universe is back on its axis! Green Bay owns the Chicago Bears, all is right with the world."

As Wisconsin and Milwaukee celebrated, they didn't notice a dark aura spring up around Chicago. Nor did they notice the spectral bear that poofed into existence behind her. Hell, they didn't even notice the lights going out.

They did notice the laugh.

"Eheheheheheh. Hahahahahahaha. Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!" Chicago cackled, two spectral grizzly bears pawing around her. "The Chicago Bears losing means all is right with the world? No. I refuse to accept that. And I'm gonna start with _you two_."

Milwaukee, reverting to instinct, tried to bolt, only for one of the bears to fall on her. Her screams persuaded Wisconsin to stay and try to put faith in her greater armor.

When Chicago raised a clawed arm, the action mimicked by the other bear spirit, she knew it wouldn't be enough.

~o~

"Well," Pittsburgh stated calmly as Breshad Perriman strolled into the end zone. "Pittsburgh just lost. At home. To the Baltimore Ratbirds."

"Yup," Baltimore replied, just as calm. "Not the way you expected Ben Rapistberger's last home game to go, I take it?"

"Oh, shove it up your goonhole, teamstealer," Pittsburgh shot back, still deathly calm. "You're the reason Cleveland cries herself to sleep every Sunday."

"At least we don't play dirty and celebrate injuring key players with cheap shots," Baltimore volleyed, also still calm.

"Touche, dear sister, though when you became a Bungles fan is beyond me," Pittsburgh replied, standing up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go see a man about a horse."

"You do that."

About two seconds after Pittsburgh was out of sight, Baltimore heard a wordless shriek of anguish ring out throughout the building. For her part, the heavy cruiser let a smug grin creep onto her face.

"That's for last year's Wild Card round," she said to herself.

~o~

"Well," Oakland said as Matt Prater's kick sailed to the left. "Good game."

"Same to you," Denver replied. "Why, oh, why can't we find a good right tackle?"

"Well, not many right tackles that can match up against a Mack Attack," Oakland replied.

The two sat in an awkward silence for a second before Wichita strolled in and looked at the score.

"Ah, so Oakland won, huh?" she said, smirking. "Not that it matters, my Chiefs are in already. Booyah!"

As Wichita did a happy dance behind them, Oakland turned to Denver. "Y'know, we may be rivals, and we may fight about things, but I think we can agree on one thing."

"Fuck the Chiefs?"

"Fuck the Chiefs. And Andy Reid, too, stupid walrus that he is."

~o~

"Let me at her!" Boston screamed as she flailed in Massachusetts' grip.

"Nope."

"I'm gonna kill her and bury the body in the mountains!" Indianapolis screeched, flailing in Indiana's grip.

"Not gonna happen."

"Dammit, she insulted Tom Brady!/Dammit, she insulted Peyton Manning!" the two heavy cruisers barked simultaneously. "Stop copying me!"

The two battleships sighed. "I hate Sundays," they chorused together.


	103. Rule 292

**Rule 292. Whoever keeps locking Washington and Kirishima in a broom closet together please stop.**

Washington sighed for the fourth time in fifteen minutes as she looked out the window of the room she shared with her sister North Carolina, a window that just so happened to look out on the Pacific Ocean.

"Okay, Wash, what's going on?" North Carolina finally asked, snapping the book she was reading shut and adjusting her glasses. "You've been doing this for days. It's not like you."

"It's nothing, sis," Washington replied. "It's stupid, but I just wish I- never mind." With that, she sighed again.

North Carolina, for her part, frowned but went back to her book, the scene playing through her mind. And as she worked through the implications, she had to repress a gleeful giggle. Her sister, solid and dutiful Washington, had a crush! Oh, this was so perfect! But with who...?

North Carolina's eyes widened as she came to a possible answer.

~o~

Kirishima sighed for the fourth time in fifteen minutes as she looked out the window of the room she shared with her sisters, a window that just so happened to look out on the Pacific Ocean.

"What's wrong, Kirishima?" Kongo asked in her usual boisterous manner. "You can tell your Onee-sama what's wrong! I won't tell anyone!"

"It's nothing, onee-san," Kirishima replied. "I'll... handle it. I have a plan. Well, part of a plan. Just... I got this, okay?"

Kongo frowned, having expected a more... forceful response than that. For all that her youngest sister liked to project an image of intellectual dutifulness, she was easily the most hot-blooded of the Kongo sisters, and let me tell ya, that's saying something. What could make her so quiet, so-

Kongo turned around to suppress the bout of giggles that nearly came over her. Her little Kirishima-chan had a crush! Oh, that was just too adorable! Who was it with, though? She'd have to be good enough for her youngest sister, and she'd have to know the ways of BURNING LOVE! But who could that-

Kongo's eyes widened as she came to a possible answer.

~o~

BURNING LOVE!: Hey, North Carolina. Hey. Hey, listen. Hey. Listen. Hey. Desu!

Bibliophile: I'm here, I'm here. Keep your shirt on.

Bibliophile: So, what's this about?

BURNING LOVE!: I was just thinking... your sister and Kirishima-chan would make a very cute couple, don't you think?

Bibliophile: ...

Bibliophile: Let me guess: Kirishima keeps looking out over the Pacific and sighing?

BURNING LOVE!: Desu!

BURNING LOVE!: I mean, yes.

BURNING LOVE!: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Bibliophile: I think so, but where are we going to find mistletoe this far out of season?

BURNING LOVE!: You leave that to me. We just need an excuse to get them in the same building.

Bibliophile: Hmm... Well, we've got an important diplomat heading out to talk to Re-chan in the Marquesas. Having four fast battleships on hand in Fiji would be a good idea, don't you think?

BURNING LOVE!: You convince your admiral, I'll convince mine. And we meet in Fiji! For our sisters' love!

Bibliophile: And Fijian beaches!

BURNING LOVE!: That too!

~o~

"Where are we going, Kongo?" Kirishima asked, annoyed, likely from the stares she was getting in her bikini, which was rather skimpier than what she would normally wear.

"It's a SURPRISE!, remember?" the fast battleship sing-songed as she skipped along in an equally skimpy bikini. "You'll love it, I guarantee!"

"Fine..." Kirishima grumbled.

Finally, the two battleships came to an equipment shed for the lifeguards. And to Kirishima's surprise, not only was it unlocked, there were Washington and North Carolina! And in some... very attractive swimwear.

"What the-" she began, before Kongo grabbed her shoulders and shoved her into the shed. She was dimly aware of another body getting shoved in along with her, and then the door closed, the lock clicking tight. Still, Kirishima didn't panic, for she knew the body pressing against her almost like her own.

"Wash, that's you, isn't it," she sighed.

"The one and only," the American battleship replied. "I'm guessing our sisters decided to 'ship' us together."

Kirishima glanced up at the sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. "You don't say," she deadpanned. "Well, we do make a good couple, dear."

"And we do need to thank our sisters for basically giving us a free tropical vacation," Washington mused. "How much you wanna bet that they're listening to us right now?"

"Sucker bet," Kirishima smirked. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think I am."

~o~

Thirty minutes later, Kirishima and Washington kicked down the door to the shed, adjusted their swimsuits, and made a beeline for their sisters, who were parked on a set of beach towels about a hundred feet away. To their pleasure, North Carolina looked like a cooked beat, though Kongo just looked happy.

"Well, it seems that I do not have to teach you the ways of BURNING LOVE!" she announced. "For you have plenty of it yourselves!"

"Oh, thank Christ!" Washington exclaimed as she sat down next to North Carolina, who for her part inched away a bit. "I don't think I could've handled that conversation."

"That said..." Kongo continued, smirking mischievously. "If you need any ideas to... spice things up a bit, the Admiral and I have been experimenting, and I can definitely help you with-"

"LALALALALALA NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!" Kirishima shouted as she covered her ears.


	104. Rule 298

**Rule 298. Hearing both Phoenix and US Army Warrant Officer Zaiz laughing together in the workshop is not a cause to start a panic.**

USS Phoenix, Brooklyn class light cruiser and one of the resident Mad Scientists of San Diego, was tinkering in her workshop when there was a knock at the door.

"Now, who could that be?" she wondered as she got up and opened the door. To her surprise, there was a sheepish-looking man standing in front of the door frame. Army, from the fatigues.

"Warrant Officer Zaiz, U.S. Army," he said in greeting, sticking his hand. Confused, Phoenix nonetheless took it and gave a shake.

"USS Phoenix, CL-46, but you probably know that already," the light cruiser replied. "So. What brings you down to my neck of the woods?"

The sheepish expression on Zaiz's face intensified, if anything. "I was, uh, kinda ordered here by my battalion commander," he replied. "Probably because I get these... ideas. Ideas that- Oh, to heck with it, I'll just share my latest. You know that Mad Scientist battle from a few months ago?"

"Yes," Phoenix scowled. "I still can't believe South Dakota didn't invite me."

"And you know what Vanguard did, right?"

"How could I forget?" Phoenix said dreamily. "Ah... so much fire..."

"Well, see, the thing is, as effective as it was Vanguard was basically blowing herself up. Constantly," Zaiz continued, the embarrassment giving way to confidence. "But I've got ideas for an actually 95% safe delivery system. And then-"

"All the fire," Phoenix finished for him. "What's your idea?"

He told her.

"Heheheheheheh," Phoenix chuckled.

"Hahahahahahahahaha," Zaiz joined.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

~o~

"W-Was that Phoenix?!" Wilkes-Barre asked fearfully.

"Y-Yes. J-Just like Vincent Price," Pasadena stammered.

The two light cruisers glanced at each other, took deep breaths - and ran the other way, screaming.

~o~

"Okay, this is too thin. It's liable to rupture just by sneezing on it."

"It does need to break open on impact."

"Hello? Dive bombers? These things are gonna be impacting at several hundred miles an hour."

"Right, right, so make the casing a little thicker and-"

A knock on the door knocked Phoenix and Zaiz out of their musings. "Yes, what is it?" a grumpy Phoenix said as she opened the door.

"Uh..." the hapless ensign stammered. "I- Admiral Holloway asked that I retrieve you for a briefing."

"A briefing on what?"

"A-An Abyssal in the Aleutians. M-Made of ice."

The smile that crept across Phoenix's face would haunt the ensign for the rest of his life.

"Finish up that bomb, Zaiz," Phoenix ordered. "Looks like we just got the perfect test subject."

~o~

 **299\. After the latest sortie rule number 298 has been removed. If you hear these two laughing like that again you are to reported it to the Admiral, commander, or one of the secretary ships. Water should not burn like that.**

Enterprise, flanked by Yorktown, Franklin, and Bonhomme Richard, stared at the massive bonfire that had once been the Iceberg Empress. The agonized screams of the Abyssal filled the air even as the battleships mopped up the escorts.

Finally, a colossal explosion finally rent the massive ice Abyssal, and the burning sections began to slip below the waves. That didn't stop the fire, oh no, it happily continued to burn, a series of small explosions ringing out underwater.

Finally, Yorktown broke the silence. "What the _fuck_ , E."

"I- Phoenix just pressed it into my hands!"

"I gotta agree with your sister, what the _fuck_ , Enterprise?" Bonhomme Richard spat.

"I had no idea what was in that!"

"And you just loaded it up onto a dive bomber?" Yorktown growled, grabbing her sister by the collar and leaning in. "Look at that!" she shouted, pointing at the massive pile of flaming ice. "That shit ain't natural!"

"Aw, lay off on Enterprise, you guys," Franklin replied. "It worked, and it's actually kind of a pretty fire."

Bonhomme Richard and Yorktown both stared at Franklin like she'd grown a second head. "What the _fuck_ , Franklin?"


	105. Rule 303

**Rule 303. Regardless of the hilarity of it you cannot change the menu to 6 days of fish tacos and then suddenly pie.**

"So, what's for breakfast?" Reno asked as she and some of her sisters stood in line in the cafeteria.

"I'm more worried about where San Diego is," San Juan replied, her head seemingly on a swivel as she looked for her sister.

*cough*"Siscon!"*cough* JJ - a.k.a. Juneau Junior - coughed.

"Hey, you lose two sisters in the same night and see how you feel seventy years later," San Juan snarled, turning on the other light cruiser.

"Guts, shut up, I can see the menu," Oakland interjected. "And we're having... fish tacos?"

Juneau and Reno both mimed gagging, while San Juan looked just as confused as Oakland. "Fish tacos for breakfast?"

Oakland shrugged. "Apparently. Ah well, might as well see if they're any good."

Oakland took the lead, taking one of the platters handed out by the cooks, each holding a dozen fish tacos. To her surprise, the fish was grilled, rather than the usual fried fillet. Aside from that, it looked pretty standard.

Sitting down, Oakland waited for her sisters to join her before biting down.

"So, what's your problem?" San Juan asked as she let Oakland take the lead.

"I've never had good experiences with seafood," Reno grumbled. "Because Nevada."

"The state or the battleship?"

"Yes."

"I'm just sick of seafood," Juneau sighed. "If I never see another crab in my life it'll be too soon."

"Well, maybe this'll be diff-" San Juan frowned, then did an impressive double-take as she saw Oakland get up, her platter empty. "What the-!"

"I'm gonna go get seconds, be right back," Oakland said as she practically ran for the line.

Once again, the three light cruisers eyed the tacos. "What the hell, I'll give these a try," Reno decided.

Five minutes later, they too were running for the line for seconds.

~o~

Six Days Later:

San Diego smirked as she looked over the grumbling shipgirls lined up for breakfast. She had accomplished her twin objectives of introducing the shipgirls to her namesake city's excellent tacos, and pissing them off with the lack of variety. Even she had to admit that six days of fish tacos, breakfast, lunch, and dinner would get old fast. So, she had decided to change things up a bit.

"Yes!" someone in the line shouted. "Not tacos!"

Indeed, lining the serving area were dozens of meat and fruit pies, steaming hot and smelling very delicious. All San Diego needed to do was sit back and watch the feeding frenzy begin.

Ah, it was good to be in charge of the food.

Making her way back to her office, she opened the door, intending to get a head start on planning next week's meals. Instead she found Admiral Holloway sitting at her desk and looking distinctly grumpy.

"We need to talk."


	106. Rule 307

**Rule 307. Instant Repair Buckets are not, in fact, made from the corpses of failed summons. It is wrong to tell destroyers this.**

"You want to know how repair buckets are made?" Akashi asked.

"Yeah!" Kagerou chirped. "I mean, they're mystery items, so it's gotta be cool! Oh! Do you break apart clay pots to get them?!"

Behind her, Shiranui and Arare nodded their heads in stoic agreement.

"What are you, stupid?" Kasumi groaned, slapping the other destroyer upside the head. "That's from a video game!"

"Owie..."

Akashi frowned at the display while she pondered what to say. Despite being the primary repair ship for the Japanese Navy, even she didn't know how Repair Buckets were made. Hell, she wasn't sure _anyone_ knew how they were made. All she knew was that there was a room tucked away in the base that they checked on periodically. Sometimes there would be repair buckets, sometimes not. Still, this was a good opportunity to have a little _fun_.

"Hey!" Kasumi snapped. "Tell us already, you shitty repair ship!"

Oh boy. Word to the wise: backsassing a repair ship is basically the equivalent of doing that to a doctor. Or, in other words, quite unwise.

"Well..." Akashi drew out, smiling sweetly. "That's kind of a secret. I don't know if I should be telling you."

"Aww..." Kagerou groaned. "Come on, let's go, girls."

"Wait," Kasumi cut in, grabbing Kagerou by the back of the collar. "You wouldn't be telling us it's a secret if it was actually classified, you'd just deny knowledge. What's the truth?"

"Smart girl," Akashi smirked. "Very well. You want to know the truth?"

Kasumi, Shiranui, and Arare nodded, while Kagerou did her best impression of a woodpecker.

"Very well. First, you should know what happens when a summoning fails." Akashi's smirk grew wider. "It is not a shipgirl that comes through. It is a pile of meat and metal, twisted and misshapen, begging to die but lacking the vocal chords to do so. You know Fullmetal Alchemist?"

Arare's eyes widened in horror.

"Yeah, kinda like that," Akashi nodded. "Still, we have to do _something_ with them. And since resources tend to be... tight... Well. Some bright spark figured out a way to process these failed summons to produce a container of fluid that would jump-start a shipgirl's repair process. It worked, well beyond anyone's expectations. Of course, with the efficiency of the summoning process, we don't get many failures, and thus we're running out of buckets stockpiled back when we were still blindly groping in the darkness."

Akashi's grin was downright demonic by now. "Good news, though, they found a new process. So just be good little destroyers, okay? Otherwise..."

"I'M SORRY!" Kasumi wailed, throwing herself at Akashi's feet. "I'LL BE GOOD! DON'T TURN ME INTO A REPAIR BUCKET!"

"I don't get it..." Kagerou grumbled as Kasumi grovelled.

"Shiranui will explain later..." the destroyer in question mumbled.


	107. Rule 309

**Rule 309. Adventure is reminded to clean up after herself and not leave mines strewn about.**

"Hmm, that's odd..."

Welshman looked up the newspaper she was reading at Manxman's muttered words. Her younger sister was in charge of doing inventory for the fast minelayers stationed at Portsmouth. "What's up?" she asked.

"We had our mine inventory checked out for maintenance," Manxman replied. "And now we're missing 107 large-pattern mines."

"Well, where'd they go? They didn't just get up and walk away," Welshman grumbled.

*BOOM!*

"GAH!"

"GALATEA, NO!"

The two fast minelayers gave each other worried looks.

"Who's in charge of maintenance, again?" Welshman asked with barely concealed panic.

"Goddammit, Adventure!" Manxman answered. Sweeping out of her chair, she threw open the door to find Galatea on the ground, clutching her leg and being fussed over by her sister Aurora. There was also a battleship-shaped hole in one of the walls.

"Oh, it's you," Aurora spat as the two minelayers took in the scene.

"Who made the hole?" Manxman asked.

"Nelson. She took one look at what happened to me and went through the wall," Galatea gritted out. "Penelope followed her."

Manxman made to respond, but Welshman's phone ringing cut her off. "Hang on, I gotta take this," the minelayer said. "Yo, Ajax, what's up?"

 _"Hey, Welshman, we're in a bit of a pickle here,"_ the light cruiser answered. _"Neptune and I are kinda stuck in a minefield, and Neptune's catatonic. Could you get me some minesweepers?"_

"Wait..." Welshman wondered. "How are you holding your phone?"

 _"Very carefully. Could you hurry up? My arms are burning."_

"R-Right."

~o~

"Come on, Nelson, Penelope!" Royal Oak shouted as she pounded on the door to the room the two had locked themselves into. "You can't stay in there forever!"

"No! You're on their side, aren't you?! You're trying to get me out so the mines can get me! Well, I'm not gonna let that happen! I'm staying in here!"

"Sister, please!" Rodney pleaded. "Don't do this!"

"Hissssssss!"

"Yo, Nelson!" Revenge shouted, banging her hand on the door and making her gold chain necklaces jangle. "Get yo' fool ass outta there, or I'mma bust this door wide open!"

"Would it kill you to speak like a civilized person?" Royal Oak sighed as they waited for an answer. "Never mind, don't answer that. I don't think she's coming out."

"Awright, then," Revenge grinned. "Plan 'Busta Cap' it is!" The battleship turned her 15" guns on the door and fired a shell, turning it into so many splinters. The dust had barely begun to clear when all three ships dove in and dragged out Nelson and Penelope, aided by the fact that the light cruiser had passed out at some point.

~o~

"Alright, what have we learned?" Abdiel lectured to Adventure, who was nursing a goose egg on her head.

"To clean up after ourselves when we take out mines," the older minelayer intoned. "And not leave them out for other shipgirls to run over."

Any further lectures were ended when Manxman popped her head in. "Abdiel, Nelson and Penelope have been retrieved," she said. "We're cleaning up the last of the mines. Unless Admiral Cunningham gets here early, we should have them all cleaned up by the time he gets back."

"Good," Abdiel said, nodding. "Well, it looks like you'll get off-"

"ADMIRAL!" came Eagle's voice from somewhere deep within the base.

*KABOOM!*

"Never mind..."


	108. Rule 310

**Rule 310. Yes, we know Valiant is sneaking out in disguise to go shopping and clubbing. No, we are not going to try and stop her.**

With the Abyssal War in full swing, Alexandria was one of the most important cities in the world. Oil from the Middle East flowed in pipelines across Saudi Arabia to ports along the Red Sea, where it was transported to Egypt, put in pipelines again, and then sent to Alexandria, where it could then be refined or shipped in massive convoys to Europe. Add in the proximity of the Suez canal, a combined Greco-Turkish shipgirl force only strong enough to cover the Aegean, and the fact that the French and Italian fleets were hard-pressed as it was to cover the Western and Central Mediterranean, respectively, it was little surprise that the Royal Navy was once again anchored in the Egyptian port.

As soon as enough ships were available, the carriers Formidable and Illustrious, battleships Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant, and a rather variable number of cruisers and destroyers had been dispatched. They had arrived to find a full-scale shipgirl base, built by the Egyptians with French assistance, and backed up by a veritable swarm of F-15, F-16, F-35, Rafale, and Typhoon aircraft equipped for maritime strike drawn from across the Middle East. Combat aside, it was a nice posting, affording plenty of time to just relax in Alexandria's luxurious tourist districts.

All this Barham, recently arrived with cruisers Argonaut, Bonaventure, Fiji, and Kenya, could understand. What she didn't understand was where Valiant was, and why Warspite and Elly, as they called their eldest sister, were not worried in the least.

"So, let me get this straight," Barham said in a rather strained tone. "Every night, Val dolls herself up, dyes her hair, dresses in an outfit that would make _Jean Bart_ blush, and goes out for the night to hit the shops and clubs."

"Yup," Queen Elizabeth replied as she lounged in a, well, lounge chair in a bathrobe, mud mask, and cucumbers.

"And when she does come back," Barham continued. "It's with a guy or three hanging off her arm."

"Sounds about right," Warspite moaned as a shirtless, well-muscled, oiled-up Sudanese man worked out the kinks in her back. "Ohhhh, right there."

Barham felt her eye twitch. "And you know all this, and you're not _stopping her_?" she incredulously demanded.

"She shows up to training and general quarters, and it doesn't affect her performance," Queen Elizabeth replied airily. "Honestly, I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem," Barham ground out, steam leaking from the corners of her mouth. "Is that she _didn't tell me!_ I mean, my God, if I'd known she was doing all this I'd have bugged Admiral Collingwood to get me transferred here sooner so I could join her! But noooooooo, she doesn't even _hint_ at it, either on Facebook, or Vine, or in email, or-!"

"You should probably check her Instagram, then," Warspite offered. "It's got tons of pictures."

"Oooooohhhhh, that tears it..." Barham growled. "Turned to the Dark Side, has she? Show her the error of her ways, I will."

As Barham stomped off, cackling under her breath, the two battleships turned their gazes on the third member of their spa group, lounging in the hot tub.

"You are going to get pictures of this, right?" Queen Elizabeth asked.

"Are you kidding me?!" Formidable scoffed. "I got my pilots briefed an hour ago! No way am I missing this!"


	109. Rule 311

**Rule 311. Cumberland and Suffolk are to stop asking to "Restore our butts to their former glory!"**

"Come in!" Admiral Collingwood called out as he heard a knocking on his door. It swung open, allowing Cumberland to strut in in one of her usual skimpy off-duty outfits. Collingwood had gotten very good at not staring. Behind her walked in Suffolk, wearing her usual bored, stoic expression. The two heavy cruisers sat down in front of their Admiral as he finished up the last of his work.

"Alright, I'll cut to the chase," Collingwood announced, putting aside some papers. "Now that we've finally got the vast majority of our shipgirls summoned, we can start thinking about upgrades. Hood and Repulse have priority, and we're looking into rebuilding Nelson and Rodney, Barham and Malaya, and Courageous and Glorious, but it was decided to rebuild you two ahead so we can work out the rest of the cruiser refits, see if we want to extend them to all of your sisters."

"I like what I'm hearing," Cumberland grinned. "So, what're the changes?"

"Well..." Admiral Collingwood hastily flipped through the document detailing the changes. "Increased floatplane storage, AA upgraded to 8 4" and 2 quad 2-pounder, and fitting of a 4.5" belt on the machinery spaces. It'll slow you down a little, and you're going to have to lose the torpedoes, but overall I think it's worth it."

Both heavy cruisers seemed dubious at the prospect of landing their torpedoes, but the next item Admiral Collingwood identified erased all doubt.

"Oh, and you're both getting radar, too."

"Yes!" Cumberland whooped. "No more groping blindly in the North Atlantic fog!"

"I'll have to tell Bismarck the good news," Suffolk added, cracking a rare smile.

"Alright, then, you'll need to report to Resource in three days at two in the afternoon for the refits," Admiral Collingwood told them. "Don't be late."

~o~

Four days later, Collingwood was taking a tea break and wondering how the refits had gone when a shapely leg busted down his door. Being somewhat used to shenanigans like this, Collingwood merely quirked an eyebrow and took a sip of tea as Suffolk stormed in, looking absolutely furious, followed by a blushing and equally upset Cumberland.

"What seems to be the problem, girls?" he asked, perhaps a little _too_ casually.

"This is serious, Admiral," Suffolk growled, stalking up to him and grabbing him by the collar. "This is a crime beyond comprehension, and you are the cause!"

"Suffolk!" Cumberland snapped. "Put him down. We still need him alive if we're going to fix this."

"Fix _what?_ " Collingwood snapped in exasperation.

Growling, Cumberland did something very unexpected: she turned around and stuck her butt out at him.

"Look at this!" she shouted. "Look at what that refit has done!"

"Restore our butts to their former glory!" Suffolk added.

"What in the world are you-" Collingwood began before noticing that the normally nigh-skintight shorts Cumberland wore when she wasn't wearing miniskirts were a little baggy. And then he remembered one other feature the upgrades to the Kent subclass had entailed for these two ships. "Oh. Resource cut down your sterns, didn't she."

"YES!" the two screeched in unison.

"Well, I'm sorry, but we've got a serious backlog right now," Collingwood informed them, not sounding regretful at all. "All your sisters are getting modernized, as well as the ships I mentioned three days ago, and we still need to get all the Cs converted to AA cruisers. Be glad the Ds are being upgraded in Norfolk."

One look at the smoldering glares the two heavy cruisers shot him told him that that wasn't good enough.

"Fine," he sighed, throwing up his hands. "I'll slot you in after Australia and Canberra, Resource will restore your sterns then. Until then, though, you're going to just have to live with this."

The glares redoubled, but the Admiral refused to budge, and eventually they turned around and left. Not a minute later there was a screech of "OH COME ON!" wafting from the hall.

Collingwood smirked. "I guess they saw Glorious and Courageous," he said to himself, before turning back to his work.


	110. Rule 314

**314\. The "Who has the scariest animal?" competition is cancelled effective immediately.**

"Alright, Sendai," Neptune said. "Show me what you've got."

Grinning, Sendai pulled out a clear plastic box filled with several angry hornets. Angry hornets the size of Neptune's thumb.

"Meet the Asian Giant Hornet!" Sendai said proudly. "All the terror of regular bees and wasps, except bigger, and with flesh-melting venom!"

Neptune took a few shaky steps back from the container. "F-Flesh melting venom, huh?" she stammered. "And those are secured, right?"

"Yup!" She frowned, tapping her chin. "I'm pretty sure, at least."

Off to the side, Enterprise, Tirpitz, and Warspite held up small signs, containing a 9, 7, and 8, respectively.

"A-Alright, so a strong 24 right off the bat for Sendai," Neptune shakily announced, Sendai pumping her fist. "N-Next contestant!"

In strode Achilles, with a shit-eating grin on her face and a leash in her hand. And attached to the leash was-

"JESUS CHRIST IS THAT A CRAB?!" Neptune shrieked, jumping nearly a foot in the air.

"Yup! Meet the coconut crab!" Achilles beamed. "This baby weighs nine pounds!"

"N-Nine p-pounds?"

"Don't worry!" Sendai piped up. "Just hit its weak point for massive damage!"

"Kinda looks like a spider, doesn't it?" Achilles mused. Neptune's shaking only intensified at that statement.

The judges gave their scores: 6, 6, and 7.

"Oh, come on!" Achilles cried. "Only a 19?"

"Next contestant!" Neptune desperately shrieked.

In strode Ontario, carrying a steel cage under one arm. A steel cage that was shaking rather violently.

"This is Jim Bob, a wolverine I found while hiking!" the light cruiser announced proudly.

Neptune mustered up her courage and approached the cage, leaning down to get a closer look.

"Huh. It's kinda cute," she said to herself. Naturally, the animal chose that exact moment to attack the bars again, snarling. Neptune frantically threw herself back, barely choking down a scream.

"Now, I should hope the wolverine needs no introduction," Ontario said smugly, the smug only intensifying as the judges put up their scores: 6, 8, and 8. "Twenty, not bad."

Neptune, huddled in a corner, didn't even need to call out the next two contestants. They admitted themselves. On one side stood Gambia, another plastic insect box full of buzzing mosquitoes and on the other stood Pensacola, a rather fat man in a wife beater and ratty jeans trailing confusedly behind her.

"Mosquitoes!" Gambia snapped at the American. 9, 5, 8.

"Florida Man!" Pensacola shot back. 10, 8, 8.

"Malaria!"

"Man, do you even read the news?!"

"Yellow fever!"

"Or Carl Hiaasen?!"

"Enough!" Neptune shrieked, pressing the first-place ribbon into Pensacola's hands. "You win! Now stop arguing before Australia gets here!"

The room fell into a dead silence, even the judges looking afraid. Neptune looked around, wild-eyed.

"No," she spat. "No. Nononononono you've gotta be kidding me! A 'Scariest Animal' competition and none of you even _consider_ what Australia's going to dig out of some godforsaken hole in the ground?! No! Does not compute, does not compute! Graaaaaaaahhhhh!"

"Time to go," Sendai whispered to Ontario. A nod, and the ships at the competition slowly slunk out of the gym, leaving Neptune to her fury.

~o~

"Look at him!" Australia cooed, holding up a Sydney funnel-web spider. "Isn't he just the _cutest_?"

"Uh, s-sure," Nagato said uncertainly, leaning as far away from the highly venomous invertebrate as possible. Above her was a banner saying "Cutest Animal Competition!". "C-Could you... move back a bit, please?"

"Sure!" the heavy cruiser chirped. "Oh, look at that dog!" And with that, she was gone.

Nagato leaned over to Rodney. "Who the hell forgot to ban her?!" she hissed.

"I don't know!" Rodney wailed.


	111. Rule 318

**Rule 318. Following the recent diplomatic incident with the Philippines, while your commitment to upholding maritime safety standards is commendable, there is a time and a place for it, and outside the transportation department during the middle of a legislative session in Manila is neither the time, nor the place.**

"Push!" Hiei shouted, straining against the hull of a badly overloaded ferry.

"Pushing!" Jintsuu called out to her left.

"How the heck are we doing this?" Takao muttered under her breath.

"I don't know, sparkly magical shipgirl bullshit?" Atago offered.

"Works for me."

The small task force had stopped in Manila on the way back from a search and destroy mission off the coast of southern Vietnam - or what was left of it, at least - to do a quick refuel for the last leg, and had been just easing into the bay when they happened across a badly overloaded ferry on the verge of capsizing. Hiei had taken one look at the ship, and the distant rescuers, and come to the conclusion that unless something drastic was done the ferry was going to tip over well before rescuers could even get there. Hence why they were currently straining to keep the hull upright.

Of course, while the weight was no problem, the fact that they'd had to hold it up for the last thirty minutes was.

"Ah!" Yukikaze cried. "Hieiiiiiii! Amatsukaze is down!"

"I can - nnngh! - tell!" the battleship shot back. "What's the problem?"

"I'm pretty sure she's out of fuel!"

Hiei fought to resist the urge to swear. She, Takao, and Atago had plenty of fuel left, while Jintsuu still had a sizable margin, but the destroyers had been painfully low when they arrived in Manila. This sort of strenuous work was not conducive to fuel sipping, either.

Luckily, the battleship could feel the strain of the ship lessening, likely due to the rescuers getting people off the boat. Running a hasty calculation - and wishing Kirishima was here, that was more her speed - Hiei made an executive decision.

"Get you and your sisters to shore, Yukikaze," she ordered. "We've got this."

Nodding, Yukikaze let go of the boat and began picking up Amatsukaze. Hiei didn't notice; she was busy focusing on the still-capsizing ship. That, and thinking of ways to make damn sure shit like this couldn't happen again.

~o~

 _"- barnacle-encrusted kelp-snorting coral-fucking sons of thieves and whores! May Oda Nobunaga hack his way out of Hell and sack your homes and kill your families! If you do not-!"_

Goto paused the video and rubbed his temples, fighting the urge to go retrieve his officer's sword and go to town on his office. That would be astoundingly juvenile, albeit astoundingly cathartic. Sighing, he checked the view counter. 40 million views and counting. His recommended videos tab helpfully supplied a version with English subtitles two hours old that had another seven million.

And all of them a profanity-filled rant from one of his battleships to the Philippine government about maritime safety.

"Well," Ooyodo said over his shoulder. "On the bright side, nobody besides the Philippine government is actually upset about this. The US and the Philippine voters are basically telling them to 'sit down and shut up'." She frowned, tapping her chin. "I wonder how much of this was deliberate on Hiei's part, seeing as how she was the Emperor's ship and all."

"When she gets here, send her to me," Goto replied, studiously ignoring that last sentence. "This worked out, but I do not want this happening again."

"Yes, Admiral."


	112. Rule 324

**Rule 324. No, we are not explaining what "Jizz in my pants" means. You made your bed, now you get to lie in it.**

"Lock eyes from across the room  
Down my drink while the rhythms boom  
Take your hand and skip the names  
No need here for the silly games"

Sendai bobbed her head along to the song she was playing on Youtube over her speakers. Naka had introduced the group, The Lonely Island, and in the light cruiser's opinion it was one of the greatest acts of sisterly love she had ever done. These guys were hilarious! Even I'm on a Boat. _Especially_ I'm on a boat.

"I need a few things from the grocery  
Doing things alone now mostly  
Left me heartbroken out looking for love  
Surprise in my eyes when I looked above"

Once again, Sendai found herself thanking Kongo for the English lessons she periodically gave alongside Tokiwa. This wouldn't have been half as funny if she'd been reading subtitles.

Unfortunately for the night battle-obsessed light cruiser, she had failed to take into account one small detail: she'd left her door open.

"Last week I saw a film  
As I recall it was a horror film  
Stepped outside into the rain  
Checked my phone and saw you rang"

Sendai giggled as the events in the song grew more and more absurd, not noticing Hatsuyuki, Shirayuki, Murakumo, and Fubuki walk in the door. Nor did she notice them cluster over her shoulder, looking at the video with varying degrees of curiosity and exasperation.

"I jizz right in my pants every time you're next to me  
And when we're holding hands, it's like I'm in ecstasy"

The short video came to an end, and a grinning Sendai hastily stopped the next video from popping up onto the screen. The light cruiser swung around in her chair to do... something, only to freeze as she took in the sight of her charges standing not six inches in front of her, one of whom, Fubuki, had a direct line to Admiral Goto, and another, Murakumo, who had a direct line to Captain Darren, a Philippine officer looking into forming an Asiatic squadron of USN shipgirls, who also had a direct line to Admiral Goto.

And neither looked happy at her.

"Um, Sendai?" Shirayuki asked nervously. "W-What does 'jizz in my pants' mean?"

Sendai's brain seized up. For all that she was the premium connoisseur of night battles on base - of _both_ varieties - she had never had to explain the... mechanics to anyone of light cruiser tonnage or below. And after what had happened to Kinu way back when...

"W-Why don't we go talk to Admiral Go-"

"Oh no you don't!" Murakumo snapped, her face still flushed. "You do not get to pass the buck, not for an act of-of lewdness like this! I will not have you corrupt Admiral Goto into someone like Captain Darren!"

Fubuki, Shirayuki, and even the notoriously lazy Hatsuyuki all gave Murakumo puzzled looks, prompting the destroyer to go even more red.

"Murakumo's got a point," Fubuki finally said, pointedly ignoring the back half of her sister's response. "You made the bed, you get to lie in it."

Sweat broke out all over Sendai's body as she found herself caught in a Catch-22. There didn't seem to be any way for her to avoid Admiral Goto's wrath, so she did the only thing she could.

She fainted.

"Welp," Murakumo grumbled. "I suppose we'd better go talk to Captain Darren. Come on, girls."


	113. Rule 327

**Rule 327. No, trees are not some eldritch creature out to destroy the world. Stop telling the new U-boats this.**

Admiral Hartmann nodded in satisfaction as the summoning ritual came to an end, depositing another five Type VII U-boats into the warehouse they held it in. The ritual had been almost entirely spitting out U-boats for months now, ever since Graf had been summoned. Oh well. More submarines was never a bad thing.

"Admiral, sir!" all five U-boats barked as they saw him.

"At ease," he replied, turning to another U-boat standing next to him. "U-463, please show them to the submarine base."

"No problem, Admiral," the Type XIV "Milk Cow" replied. Capable of resupplying U-boats at sea with food, fuel, and even torpedoes, their summoning in back-to-back batches had dramatically increased the striking power of the U-boat fleet, extending the range of the Type VIIs all across the Atlantic. Naturally, they all rivaled Hosho and Langley in motherliness, and also had very large... fuel tanks that their wetsuits struggled to contain. U-463 was no different, though her idea of "motherly" was rather... different from her sisters.

"Follow me, ya little rugrats!" U-463 barked, prompting the new arrivals to snap to attention and follow her out of the warehouse in a tight line. The formation held until they got outside and the U-boats caught sight of the outside world - and something completely alien and unfamiliar.

"KYAAAAAAAA!" all but U-1000 shrieked, quickly ducking behind U-463. U-1000, for her part, aimed her 88mm gun at the offending thing, and fired a shell, nailing it dead center and turning it into so much splinters and driftwood.

U-463 watched, motionless, as the hapless tree fell to the ground with a creaking crash, U-1000 panting heavily from adrenaline.

"I-Is it dead?" U-1002 asked from behind U-463's leg.

"I-I think so," U-1000 guessed, before glancing up at U-463. "Is it dead?"

A malevolent grin spread across U-463's face as she realized what was going on: none of her new charges knew what a tree was. Her grin grew wider as she realized just how much fun this was going to produce.

"Not yet," U-463 replied, relishing the sudden paling of U-1000's face. Grasping the U-boats shoulder, she pointed to the stump of the tree. "See that?" U-1000 nodded shakily. "If we leave that in the ground, it'll eventually regenerate the damage. The good news is that trees - that's what those are called - are harmless like this, so you can just walk up and pull it out of the ground."

"I won't let you down, ma'am," U-1000 said, saluting the larger submarine. Slowly, carefully, she crept up to the stump. When it didn't lash out, she grabbed its sides, fingers digging into the wood, and yanked it out of the ground with a howl of triumph.

"Good job!" U-463 called out. "Now, let me take you to the base, and on the way I can tell you all about the tree menace."

~o~

U-47 breathed deeply from her nose as she let the sound of leaves flowing in the wind wash over her. Nobody knew who had planted the stand of American maples, but the copse of trees had been there when the U-boats moved in and was promptly made the center of a small park. U-47 would frequently come here to just sit in peace.

"U-1001! Look!"

"Aw, man, the tree infestation is even worse than we thought!"

U-47 snapped her eyes open to the sight of two Type VII U-boats in full rigging, discussing something between them.

"I think we might need to call in help..."

"No! We need to show U-1000 and U-463 that we can handle this ourselves!"

"That's a lot of trees, though..."

The elder U-boat frowned in confusion. Tree infestation? What? Sadly, any thoughts of waiting for more information were thrown out the window as the two U-boats aimed their 88s at her precious maples. There was only one thing to do. Narrowing her eyes, she blanketed the area with killing intent.

Killing intent was probably the least understood of the shipgirl abilities. Only the most capable and/or legendary shipgirls were even capable of it, and each produced different effects. All, though, shared glowing eyes, a malevolent aura, and the ability to induce paralyzing fear in whoever was targeted. Legends like U-47 could stop battleships, fleet carriers, and Admirals in their tracks, leaving them totally compliant.

The effect on a pair of rookies U-boats was rather more severe.

Both immediately crashed to the ground, as if pressed down by some great weight. Their faces were frozen in a rictus of terror, sweat pouring down in large droplets. Luckily, neither of them wet themselves. Barely seconds after U-47 began, the weight lifted, the two U-boats still frozen in place as U-47 stormed off to find U-463 and have... words with her.

~o~

In Norfolk, England suddenly looked up from the care manual for boa constrictors she was reading through.

"What's up?" George asked from her own bed.

"I have this sudden feeling that somewhere, somehow, some submarines are in for an extraordinarily bad time."

"Whatever, sis."


	114. Rule 330

**AN: So, this is something a little different, in that I didn't actually write this chapter. Credit instead goes to Shaithan on Spacebattles. Think of him as a guest writer of sorts.**

 **Also: this guest snippet, and any future ones, may be considered to be out of continuity with the main snips.**

 **Anyway, enjoy!**

 **Rule 330. Sammie B. 'Blood for the Blood God' is not an appropriate battle cry.  
**

Out on the Atlantic a large fleet was making best speed for the Azores. It consisted of the carriers Ranger, Wasp, Graf Zeppelin, Ark Royal, Glorious, Courageous, Furious and Lexington, the battleships Iowa, Missouri, Richelieu, Jean Bart, King George V, Prince of Wales, Roma and Bismarck, followed by the battlecruisers Hood, Renown, Repulse, Invincible, Inflexible, Indomitable, Indefatigable, Alaska, Guam and Hawaii as well as a large number of heavy cruisers, light cruisers and finally ninety destroyers and thirty destroyer escorts. Their mission was simple: an Abyssal installation had taken over the Azores and made the islands into a staging point from which the Abyss could strike at shipping in the North Atlantic with near-impunity.

The Admiralty couldn't ignore this threat and even as this force approached the islands, another of equal strength was closing in from the South to catch the Abyssals between a rock and a hard place.

The assembled fleet steamed on in silence. Radio would give them away, so messages were given via flags. The newer shipgirls, especially the Americans, grumbled about it, but no more than that. Learning just weeks prior that at least some Abyssals were perfectly fluent in Navajo had been a rude surprise. So radio silence had to be complete if their attack was to be a surprise.

Unfortunately, still some hours from the archipelago their surprise was shot to hell. A group of abyssal destroyers spotted them from far away, and even the immediate gunfire by the battleships, battlecruisers and light cruisers proved pointless. By the time the planes were underway, the destroyers were long gone and likely had already called in their findings.

After a short conversation with her fellow battleships, Richelieu, who was in command of the group decided to send out that they had been spotted. Hopefully the Southern Fleet hadn't been spotted, a hope dashed when the radio came to life. "This is Warspite. Azores Southern Invasion Fleet was spotted by hostiles about an hour ago. We are in battle with enemy aircraft right now."

Richelieu cursed. The whole plan was shot to hell, surprise was gone, but they still had to press forward. "Huron!" she barked. "Send the following to Warspite: 'Have been spotted as well. Case Yellow'. Carriers, I want a full CAP and reconnaissance assets in the air. Radio silence is no longer needed."

The battleship frowned as she heard giggles behind her, turning around to see Bismarck trying to stifle her laughter. "What's so funny?" she said.

Bismarck smiled, wiping a tear from her eye. "Well, Admiral Hartmann, Admiral Cunningham and Admiral Briggs weren't sure if only a surface/air group would suffice, so we have back-up inbound. There are about fifty operating in the area that can get here in time, and they've all been ordered to converge on the positions of our forces. Hartmann even allowed the Type XXIs to sortie."

Richelieu nodded. It made sense that some back-up was kept around. Hell, the admirals had insisted on sending out a third fleet with several repair and resupply ships, an hour behind and escorted by several hunter-killer groups and a tight screen of slower battleships and destroyers. It was an all-out effort to secure these vital islands, and Richelieu had no intention of wasting that effort.

"Send out the following," she ordered her fairies. "'Momma Bear is here!'"

Under normal circumstances, the slower battleships, auxiliaries, and escort carriers would never have been able to keep up with the main fleets, but she expected the combat would slow them down and allow them to catch up.

Soon, the first Abyssal planes came into view. The fighters of the Allied fleet shot forward, led by the Stuka Ace and the Black Tulip, the most decorated German soldier and the highest-scoring ace of all time, respectively. Behind them hundreds of planes lined up, mostly fighters, but the first bombers were also being prepared for launch so they would be ready to strike at once.

Several minutes later the sky over the fleet was filled with flak and the gunfire of fighters as well as the wailing of a Jericho trumpet. Above it all the black-nosed plane flew and showed just why its pilot was the highest-scoring ace of all time.

It didn't take long for the first Abyssal ships to appear on the horizon. Mishappen and threatening, an unholy fusion of flesh, steel and hate, they quickly accelerated for the shipgirls, firing a few salvos to test the range.

Gunfire began to be exchanged, the carriers falling back with several destroyers covering each carrier, the rest of the fleet pressing onwards.

As if given speed by Ares or Tyr, Sammy B. surged to the tip of the formation, destroyers in her wake.

The battle was joined with abyssal torpedo boats and the first destroyers. Sammy B. once again showed that "The Destroyer Escort that fought like a Battleship!" was a well-earned title. She didn't flinch when shells missed her, laughed off the actual hits and gave back far, far more than she had to take. "More!" she shouted. "Give me more! I want more war! I love it! Shells flying, enemies burning, the skies and water thick with acrid smoke and the stench of death!" Throwing back her head, she laughed the laugh of the truly joyful. "What a glorious, glorious war!"

The fighting became even thicker as the capital ships on both reached optimal engagement distance. Shells rained down, rockets and bombs rained from the Abyssal aircraft, torpedoes streaked everywhere.

Richelieu found herself swept up in the fight. Fighting side by side with King George V, she also kept an eye on the carnage around her. Bismarck's guns fell silent after taking close to two dozen hits, but several destroyers immediately towed her away. Prinz Eugen blew off the head of the Battleship Demon that had dared to hurt her beloved Meisterin Bismarck so badly.

Hood and Repulse were limping away from the battlefield, too. The older battlecruisers on the other hand were right in the thick of it, using their secondaries to destroy smaller abyssal craft, their main 12" guns savaging any cruiser in range.

Above it all the Jericho trumpet wailed as the Stuka Ace strafed the battlefield and finished her run by dropping a 1000-kilo bomb straight into a Wo-class carrier's mouth. Though it had clearly been an inexperienced one, given that she had looked up upon hearing the trumpet. Richelieu snorted. That would make the Ace's head swell again and force to Graf Zeppelin puncture it more often.

Her musings were cut short by a cry from Iowa. The mighty American battleship had found herself under the concentrated fire of six abyssal cruisers. Individually they would have been so much scrap, but from the looks of it, Iowa had taken several torpedo hits.

Like a goddess of war, Sammy B practically appeared in the midst of the cruisers, letting loose with a barrage of 5" shells at point blank range.

One cruiser had her head almost severed by this.

Sammy B grinned like a lunatic. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" she roared, louder than ever before.

"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" the many destroyers following shouted in response as Sammy B ripped the Abyssal's head off with her bare hands.

Sammy B hefted her trophy up for all to see. Putting it on her rigging, she returned to the battle, more determined than ever.

A torpedo rushed through the water, ripping off a Re-class battlship's leg. "MAIM!" Sammy B shouted over the din of battle.

A second torpedo hit the stricken battleship, killing it. "KILL!" Sammy B screamed.

Firing at a nearby destroyer, she displayed one of South Dakota's upgrades for her, white phosphorus shells that set her enemy ablaze. "BUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRNNN!" she cried, the picture of a war goddess descended from heaven.

Looking around, Richelieu saw several cruisers who eyed Sammy B and her trophy warily.

It was now that even more planes joined the fight. The support fleet had arrived. And not a moment too soon. While their current enemies may have been in full retreat, scouts reported a second group heading their way, a group that was about two hours out. The supporting ships closed in, food and ammo ready to be distributed.

And the entire time Richelieu couldn't help but watch the little destroyer escort in their midst, a destroyer escort that fought as brutal and vicious a fight as any battleship that day.

"Everyone!" she shouted. "Rest for now, for there are still battles to be fought. New enemies are coming in. Nevertheless, I fully expect us to begin sieging the Azores this evening!"Speech done, she gratefully took a loaf of fresh bread from one of the Type XIV 'Milk Cow' U-Boats. The battle had been fierce, but none of them had been sunk. She fully intended for things to stay that way.


	115. Rule 336

**Rule 336. San Francisco and Chicago are no longer allowed to watch football. We're worried about their mental health.**

"Good morning, everybody!" Chicago chirped as she sat down next to her sisters. "And how are you all feeling this fine Sunday morning?"

Northampton and Chester glanced uneasily between each other, then back at Chicago. "Uh, sis?" Chester began. "Are you... okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Chicago asked quizzically. "The sun is shining, it's a beautiful Sunday morning, and my Chicago Bears are going to _destroy_ the Green Bay Packers in prime time tonight."

"Um, Chicago," Louisville began. "That game was actually last ni-"

"Hey, do you guys want to hear about a crazy dream I had last night?" Chicago cut in. "It was the strangest thing. Aaron Rodgers had coughed up the ball four times, we had a 20-0 lead at halftime, our quarterback had thrown three touchdowns and no picks, and we had a 13-point lead with, like, five minutes left on the clock. And yet, somehow, Green Bay pulls the comeback of the year out of their asses." She gave a derisive snort. "I know dreams are supposed to be weird, but this one takes the cake."

"Should... Should we tell her?" Northampton nervously queried.

"YES," Houston immediately answered. "I want to see if her head explodes."

"Tell me what?" Chicago asked, puzzled.

"It, uh, wasn't a dream, Chicago," Chester said. "The Packers did beat the Bears with a miracle comeback in prime time."

For a moment, Chicago just sat there, her face frozen in a rictus grin. "You're saying all that stuff actually happened?" she said very softly.

"Yup," Houston smirked. "Well, except for the part about your quarterback throwing three touchdowns. He actually only threw one, plus two picks."

"Oh, I see," Chicago placidly replied, before taking a breath.

 _ **"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"  
**_  
"See, this is more the reaction I was expecting," Houston smirked, leaning back in her chair.

 ** _"-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"  
_**  
"Oh boy, this could take a while," Louisville sighed.

"Did you catch the latest Simpsons episode?"

"Yup. Seasonal rot still in full effect."

"Darn."

 _ **"-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"  
**_  
Finally, Chicago's massive scream died out, leaving every shipgirl in the cafeteria staring at their table.

"Yo, is Chicago alright?" Wichita called out.

"NO!" Chicago screamed back. "NO, I'M NOT ALRIGHT! I'M NEVER GOING TO _BE_ ALRIGHT! NOT AS LONG AS THE GODDAMN CHEESE-SNORTING FROZEN-TUNDRA-FUCKING _PACKERS_ EXIST! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Hey, well, look on the bright side!" Milwaukee called back.

"WHAT BRIGHT SIDE?!"

"At least your shit owner doesn't own your team anymore!"

"Wait, then who does?" Wisconsin wondered, smirking.

"Us."

"MILWAUKEE, I WILL... I WILL... AAAAARGH!"

There was an almight bang and a shower of sparks as Chicago's radars exploded, and the heavy cruiser slumped unconscious to the floor.

"Well," Houston said. "Her head did explode."

"Hey, where're the New Orleans sisters?" Louisville cut in.

"Who knows, probably coaxing Vincennes or Astoria out of their rooms. Again."

~o~

"San Francisco, you get out here right this instant!" New Orleans shouted in her best Big Sister voice.

"Sis, I'd really like to avoid breaking down your door!" Minneapolis added.

"Fine, God," San Francisco replied, before opening the door.

The two heavy cruisers recoiled at the sight of their sister. Her hair was dyed black, cut short, and stuck out every which way. Black eyeliner, well, lined her eyes, along with bright red lipstick. Several metal rings had been pierced through her ears, nose, and lower lip. She wore a leather miniskirt, a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, fishnet stockings on both her arms and legs, and heavy boots. All black, of course.

"What the fuck do you want?" she grumbled.

"Uh, breakfast is ready?"

"Cool. Now get the fuck out." And with that, she slammed the door in their faces.

Minneapolis and New Orleans glanced at each other before coming to a decision.

"Alaska?"

"Alaska."


	116. Rule 337

**Rule 337. Destroyer escorts do not jump out of the chests of fallen American shipgirls to claw the killers to death. Stop telling the Japanese girls this.**

The flagship Ru-class battleship grinned. The ambush had gone perfectly. The escort carriers had been caught completely off guard, and the only thing standing between her and the convoy was one measly battleship. More importantly, it was Arkansas, one of the weakest battleship girls in the world. And now, she was dead, floating on the ocean's surface.

And her sisters told her this was a bad idea! Pshaw.

Still, battleships were resilient. The Abyssal knew better than to assume one was dead just because she was lying unmoving in the water. Many an Abyssal had done that and eaten a salvo in the back. Slowly, the Abyssal crept forward, and leaned down to check Arkansas' vitals. However, she heard a cracking sound, like an eggshell, and hesitated. That hesitation cost her.

With a shout of "SCREEEEEEEEE!", Samuel B. Roberts leaped out of Arkansas' chest and latched onto the Abyssal's face, clawing and biting and discharging her 5" and 40mm guns at point-blank range. The Abyssal howled and flailed, trying to dislodge the small shipgirl, but it took a good five minutes for her to get Sammy B. off, and it left her face shredded and bloody. As it turned out, getting the destroyer escort loose was an even worse idea; the scrappy shipgirl stayed close, and the Abyssal found she couldn't turn her guns fast enough. What's more, the 5" guns were firing even faster, shredding anything not protected by armor.

The three torpedoes that slammed into her were just salt in the wound.

It wasn't long before the Abyssal collapsed into the water, drifting down into the deep.

~o~

"And that, girls, is what happens when an American shipgirl dies," Aoba finished to her audience of adoring - and now shivering - destroyers.

"The hell it is!" Portland snapped. "For one, I talked to Arkansas three hours ago when I was Skyping Tuscaloosa!"

"Oh, please, if I let facts get in the way of my reporting, I wouldn't be much of a journalist, now would I?" Aoba sniffed.

One of her eyebrows twitched, but Portland forged on. "And how would a DE fit in the chest cavity of a battleship?"

"I dunno, sparkly magically shipgirl bullshit?" Aoba shrugged.

Portland raised a finger, then lowered it. "It's sad that I can't dispute that," she sighed. "And third, **you scared the destroyers!** "

Aoba blinked in confusion. "Why are you shouting?"

Portland merely grinned as the sound of thundering footsteps charged towards Aoba. "That's why."

Still confused, the heavy cruiser turned around to see Tenryuu, Katori, and Ashigara looming over her, looking very peeved.

"A-o-ba!" they ground out simultaneously.

"Come on," Portland said as she ushered the destroyers away from the impending carnage. "Let's go get you some ice cream, okay?"

"Yay, ice cream!"


	117. Rule 340

**Rule 340. Hornet, you are to let Hornet out from behind the brick wall. Now.**

USS Hornet, CV-12, hummed cheerfully as she hung up her rigging in the locker room, taking a sip from her coffee thermos. The latest sortie had been a smashing success, and she had stayed behind to take a few photos with the press, so she was the only one present. As such, no one noticed as her humming became increasingly disjointed and her movements increasingly shaky, nor when she crumpled to the floor.

Nor when USS Hornet, CV-8, stepped next to her prone form, grinning madly.

It was many hours later when Hornet woke up. It took a few moments for her to shake the sleep out of her eyes, and even less time for them to widen to their full extent as she realized what was going on. She was in an area of the base currently being rebuilt from a game of Extreme Battleship. Her hands and feet were encased in concrete attached to the floor and ceiling. And most importantly, in front of her was a half-finished brick wall, with Hornet applying mortar to a brick.

"What?!" she shrieked, trying to wiggle free to no avail. "For the love of God, Hornet!"

Hornet didn't answer, merely placing another brick in the wall.

"Is this about your B-25s?" Hornet asked desperately. "I said I was sorry, I even went a week without bauxite so you could get new ones!"

The only response from Hornet was to place another brick in the wall. The Yorktown-class carrier blinked, and then grinned viciously, before pulling out her phone and starting up a song.

 _"We don't need no education"_

"Is this about me calling myself the greatest Hornet ever?" Hornet pleaded. "I take it back, I take it all back!"

 _"Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone!"_

Another brick placed in silence.

"Is it because I did better in the war? I'm sorry! I can't help that I'm awesome!"

 _"All in all you're just another brick in the wall"_

More bricks were placed as Hornet pleaded with Hornet to stop. Finally, only a small hole was left in the wall, and Hornet finally spoke.

"There can be only one Hornet," she intoned. "And her hull number?"

"Oh come on!" Hornet snapped. "I don't see Lexington, Wasp, Yorktown, or any of the other twins doing this!"

Hornet's only response was to place the last brick, before turning around, slipping her sunglasses on, and walking away.

"CV-8," she grinned.

Luckily for Hornet, or perhaps unluckily, depending on which one we're talking about, she was only shackled in darkness for a few minutes before Langley happened by her and got help. And despite the ordeal, Hornet couldn't help but feel sorry for Hornet at the look on the mama carrier's face.

~o~

The next morning was not a good one for Hornet. The pancakes were soggy, Hornet was sitting in her usual seat like nothing had happened, and Langley was looming over her with her patented "You dun goofed" smile on. Y'know, hard muscles, pulsing forehead vein, closed eyes.

"Uh, hi Langley," she said nervously.

"Don't 'Hi Langley' me, young lady," the old carrier sternly replied. "You are in very deep trouble for what you did to Hornet."

"Uh, E, Yorkie? Little hel-" Hornet froze as she realized her sisters had abandoned her. "Figures."

"Now, now, dear," Langley continued in a sickeningly sweet tone. "Don't try to get out of this. That would only make things worse, and trust me, they're bad enough already."

Hornet gulped as a red aura started to creep over Langley's form, and decided to take a risk.

"Hey, look, Iowa violated uniform regulations again!" she frantically shouted, pointing at the battleship in question.

"Hmm?" Langley turned to find Iowa in her usual outfit, which was just on the hairy edge of decency but not over it. "I don't-"

Where Hornet once was was just a cardboard cutout. "Clever girl," Langley grinned. "But that won't stop me."


	118. Rule 341

**Rule 341. Do not tell kanmusu from the American South that their chili isn't hot enough, they take it as a challenge and an insult.**

"I'm sorry, _what?_ "

Alabama stared, dumbfounded, at Texas and the bowl of chili she'd shoved aside. Behind her, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North Carolina were all glaring daggers at each other, each hovering over their respective pots.

"It's not spicy enough, not nearly," Texas primly replied. "Oh, and you used kidney beans. Overall, this... abomination doesn't even deserve to call itself 'chili'. Next!"

As Mississippi stepped up to present her chili, Alabama slunk off, mind examining and discarding possibilities. Texas thought her chili wasn't spicy enough? Oh, she wouldn't be thinking that by the time she was done. Picking up her phone, she quickly dialed a number.

"Yo, California!" she said. "I'm gonna need the spiciest peppers and, well, spices you can get me. Yes, the hottest. Yes, I'll wear my hazmat suit, and use tongs. Yes, I'll warn your sister ahead of time. Alright, cool, thanks. Buh-bye."

Alabama ended the call, and went back to composing her mental shopping list, making damn sure to write 'pinto beans' on it, with underlining and multiple exclamation marks. Texas wouldn't know what hit her.

~o~

Texas was in the office of her restaurant, checking over the books, when her phone rang.

"Y'ello?" she said.

 _"Whose chili isn't spicy enough now, bitch?!"_

The older battleship sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Alabama, what on Earth are you talking about?"

 _"Don't tell me you've forgotten that little competition to see whose recipe was going to be used for your restaurant!"_ the fast battleship snapped. _"Because I haven't! Especially that remark about how my chili isn't spicy enough!"_

"Jesus Christ, Alabama, you're still hung up on that?" Texas groaned. "Look, the competition's over, so-"

 _"Don't care. You're still trying my new recipe. I have Birmingham wheeling it in right now."_

Indeed, as Texas looked out her window she could see the pot on the trolley, except it was also contained in a lead lockbox and Birmingham was dressed up in a hazmat suit.

"Alabama..." Texas said slowly, a feeling of dread settling into the pit of her stomach. "What did you put in that chili?"

 _"Let's just say I called California and told her to get_ creative. _"_

Texas could feel the blood flow from her face at that. Her namesake state being one of the primary centers for Chinese, Mexican, _and_ Indian cuisine in the United States, California had a nigh encyclopedic knowledge of spiciness, fully capable of determining the Scoville units of a particular dish from smell alone. And if she had dipped fully into her knowledge for that chili...

"Alabama, are you alright?"

 _"Eh, the docs said I'd have full visual acuity back in a few days."_

Well, that wasn't ominous at all. Nosirree.

 _"Alright, enough dilly-dallying! Time for you to go try it! Birmingham, do the thing!"_

Alabama must have been in contact with the light cruiser, too, because she immediately took out a hammer and gave the box a hearty tap. The lead sides dropped away, to reveal a steaming pot, bubbling with liquid. More importantly, just looking at it, even through the glass of her office window, made her eyes water.

"Alabama, please, we can talk about this," Texas pleaded. "I can-"

 _"No! No more stalling! Eat!"_

Texas let out a little whimper, before reaching for the door handle.

~o~

It was a curious scene that HMS Delhi and Lieutenant Scoville, her USN handler while she was upgraded in the US, walked into: Texas passed out on the ground, her tongue swollen to half its usual size and covered in foam, Birmingham in a hazmat suit sitting on a chair, and a bubbling pot of chili on a titanium cart.

"Huh, wonder if that's any good," Delhi said, reaching into her pocket for a custom titanium spoon. Walking up to the pot, she scooped out a sizable portion and put it in her mouth.

Almost immediately, she stepped back, fanning herself. "Whoo! That's got some kick to it."

Scoville raised an eyebrow. "Mind if I try some?" Taking the spoon from Delhi, she too took a hearty scoop and put it in her mouth. Her reaction was more... operatic.

"AUGH, IT BURNS!" she shrieked as she rolled around on the floor, clutching her throat. "THE FIERY PITS OF HELL AREN'T THIS HOT! Dang, that's some good chili! Think we should finish this off?"

"Oh, definitely," Delhi agreed. "I'm just glad there's actually something with flavor in this country."


	119. Rule 343

**Rule 343. We are not killing Enterprise for a morale boost. Why would you even suggest that?!**

"So," Admiral Holloway said to the assembled shipgirls in front of him. "I need suggestions on how to improve our effectiveness for Operation Red Fowl. I don't care how crazy they are, but they have to be implementable quickly."

"How about a rewards system for meeting certain performance marks?" Enterprise suggested. "Y'know, like tonnage sunk, number of aircraft shot down, that sort of thing."

"That'd work, as long as we can verify it," San Francisco mused. "What sort of rewards were you thinking?"

"Toys, games, and ice cream privileges for the destroyers; vehicles and postings to Alexandria for everyone else," was the answer. At once, San Francisco, Enterprise, and New Jersey sighed dreamily, thinking of the city's warm buildings and superb masseuses.

"Actually," Selfridge cut in. "If we give the destroyers ice cream before the battle in addition to afterward, that'd likely be a good motivator."

"Both good ideas," Holloway nodded, jotting down one last note. "But let's see if we can think of any others."

The five shipgirls present set about to thinking, before San Francisco slowly raised her hand. "Drugs?"

The grimaces around the table said what everyone else thought of that idea.

"Withdrawn."

"Well, since Collingwood is sending a large force of British shipgirls, we could offer them alcohol?" New Jersey suggested. "I mean, I know they're trying to go dry, but..."

"Worth a try," Holloway decided, writing that one down as well. That finished, he turned to the last member of the council. "Albacore, do you have any suggestions? You've been quiet so far."

The submarine lazily pointed a finger at Enterprise. "Kill Enterprise," she said with all the gravitas of talking about the weather.

Holloway, San Francisco, Enterprise, Selfridge, and New Jersey all stared at her in open-mouthed shock, before they all tried to speak at once.

"No!"

"Hell no!"

"What- How do- ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

"What on Earth makes you think that would be a good idea?!"

"Sports," Albacore replied. "Loved one or beloved former team member slash owner dies. Cue players playing out of their goddamn minds."

"No," Holloway said firmly. "We are _not_ killing Enterprise for a morale boost."

"Thank you!"

"Quite aside from the problem of depriving ourselves of our best carrier, and the serious ethical violations, do you want Yamato going Abyssal and trying to raze the country to the ground?" Holloway demanded, before hastily adding another sentence at Albacore's expression. "Don't answer that."

"Forget Yamato," New Jersey growled, rising to her feet. "The rest of the US Navy would rise up as one and lynch you."

"Meh, I doubt it," Albacore scoffed. "But if you're all too much of a bunch of pussies to try, I can do it my-"

Albacore didn't finish the sentence before New Jersey and Enterprise grabbed her and flung her out the window in one smooth motion. For a moment, the group was silent, before Selfridge spoke up.

"Another good incentive would be to let the destroyers take a portion of their trust funds."

"I'll add it to the list."


	120. Rule 345

**Rule 345. Drinking games are now banned.**

"So," Musashi said as Junyou tapped away at her keyboard. Behind her, Hibiki was examining a pile of vodka bottles tucked away in a corner, looking quite pleased. "Why'd ya call us here?"

"Well, I wanted to have a little competition with you two," the carrier replied, her printer starting up. "But I wanted to make it a little more fun, so I looked up a drinking game. I'm just printing out the rules right-"

The printer coughed and wheezed, before coming to a halt. Junyou scowled and gave it a hard thump, which got it running again.

"Anyway, we're doing the My Immortal drinking game. The distilled version."

"Why not the full version?" Hibiki inquired.

Junyou let out a contemptuous snort. "Trust me, even our KC livers wouldn't be able to handle that much alcohol," she informed them. "I know that seems impossible, but it's the truth. Anyway, I've got two dozen bottles of Russian vodka, three shotglasses, and the fic projected on the screen."

"And the good stuff, too," Hibiki added, holding up a bottle before handing it to Junyou. The carrier popped open the bottle, poured the alcohol into the shot glasses and passed them and the rules around, before throwing up her glass. "Let's do this!"

"Whoo!"

"Da."

"Alright, first rule!" Junyou announced. "Take a shot every time a new misspelling debuts!"

The shipgirls quickly read over the first sentence before hastily consulting the full rules.

"So..." Musashi said, trepidation creeping into her voice. "That's... four shots and a sip?"

"Da," Hibiki replied, sounding just as worried.

"Come on, we can't give up now!" Junyou pressed as she poured the shots. "What, you scared?"

Battleship and destroyer glared at Junyou before taking their first shots.

~o~

Hiyo groaned and placed her hands low on her back, leaning back and letting the vertebrae pop. Soryu and Hiryu were absolute slave drivers. Understandable, really, when you're the redheaded stepchildren of the heavy carrier divisions, but it still left her sore every day.

Reaching the door to the room she shared with her sister Junyou, she took a deep breath and steeled herself for whatever she might find. It was a disturbingly comprehensive list. Finally, she bit the bullet and opened the door.

"Junyou, are you-" she began, before freezing as she took in the entire scene.

One awful fanfic being projected on the screen. Dozens of vodka bottles scattered around, joined by what looked like Junyou's entire alcohol stash. Sheets of paper also scattered to the four winds. And Musashi, Hibiki, and Junyou, the stoutest livers in the fleet, passed out on the floor in puddles of their own vomit, their skin steadily turning an unhealthy shade of blue and their breathing slow and erratic.

"Shit!" Hiyo spat, panicked, as she realized that all three had fucking _alcohol poisoning_. That wasn't supposed to be possible! Still, it had happened, and the carrier did the only thing she could think of.

"AAAAAAAAAADMIRAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!" she shrieked, running out of the room. "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLP!"


	121. Rule 346

**Rule 346. The longhorn was a novel idea, but Texas still isn't unretiring.**

Texas let out a yawn as she padded into the kitchen of her home, clad in a bright red bathrobe. Slowly, she prepared a pot of coffee in preparation for opening up her restaurant for the day, studiously ignoring the trio of fruit baskets marked with her name on them that were sitting on a counter. Well, ignoring except for the apple she plucked out of one of them to munch on while she waited for the coffee to brew.

Coffee done, she poured herself a cup and took a deep sip, sighing in contentment. With that, she dug out a frying pan and some bacon, frying it up and setting it aside on a plate. Two eggs replaced the bacon, sizzling in the leftover grease, and it didn't take long before the two eggs over easy were done.

As she sat down to eat, she plucked her phone off of its charger and queued up the messages.

"You have 242 new messages," Siri helpfully informed her. "First message:"

 _"Hey, sis, it's New York. Just dropping a line, seeing how it's going. How are you?"_

Sighing, Texas flipped through the messages, making sure none were actually important, before deleting the lot and going back to her eggs, liberally covering them in salt and pepper. She had just polished off the last strip, as well as her coffee, when a loud thump at her window jolted her in her seat.

Turning around, she was struck by the sight of a genuine Texas longhorn at her window. Puzzled, she walked up and opened her window.

"What are you doing here?" she mused.

"Moo."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she chuckled. "I wonder who put you here."

"Moo."

"I swear to God, if this is another one of Houston's pranks-"

"Texas we love you."

Texas froze, staring at the bovine in front of her.

"Did- Did you just speak?"

"Moo."

Texas' eyes narrowed suspiciously at the bovine, before she closed the window and turned her gaze to the figure on the floor, clutching her leg like a limpet.

"Okay," she said to New York, with just a hint of exasperation. "The longhorn was new, that was a pretty novel idea. I'm still not un-retiring."

"But I neeeeeeeeed you!" New York wailed. "It's only me and Arkansas, and we can't represent the battleship master race with just the two of us!"

"Well, go bug Admiral Briggs to get Nevada and Oklahoma transferred, they're old enough," Texas retorted. "Or hell, convince him to summon Utah, Wyoming, or Florida. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a restaurant I need to go attend to."


	122. Rule 347

**Rule 347. Do not let Ashigara know that her online boyfriend isn't real.**

"- were found passed out in Junyou's room with alcohol poisoning!" Ashigara laughed into her microphone, her text-to-speech app dutifully transcribing it. "I didn't know we could get alcohol poisoning! Last I heard, Yuubari was getting an official reprimand for trying to replicate it."

Ashigara sighed dreamily. The heavy cruiser had taken Kongo's advice to heart, but it was hard to overcome months of habit when it came to dating. For a few days, she had despaired, and then Naka had arrived with a solution: online dating! Get to know the guy over the internet, so that when they met face-to-face the Hungry Wolf would be a little less hungry.

"So, uh..." Ashigara said nervously. "I... we've been doing this long enough that... well... Do you want to go on a date?! An actual, real life date?"

For a moment, she held her breath, before the message appeared on screen.

 _Sure. What did you have in mind?!_

The resulting explosive squeal could be heard through most of the base.

"You okay, Ashigara?" Takao asked as she poked her head into the room.

"I got a date!" Ashigara squealed, glomping onto the fellow heavy cruiser. "I got a date, I got a date, I got a date!"

"I-I'm proud of you... but I can't... breathe..."

"Oh! Sorry..." Ashigara said sheepishly as she let go. "But I have a date! Three days from now! Oh, what should I wear?"

"Did someone say date?" Myoko said, popping her head in with a grin. "If you need help with an outfit, my mind and my wardrobe are open."

"Thanks, sis!" Ashigara chirped. "So, uh, what are you thinking?"

As the two heavy cruisers left, Takao peered at the computer. She had always been suspicious of online dating since Atago had tried and gotten a stupid rapist for her trouble. The poor bastard was still in traction with a shattered pelvis, and last she heard he was in line for a bionic penis, but it was still an experience she'd rather no one else go through. She quickly clicked on the profile for the man in question, silently thanking Ashigara for leaving the browser up. The profile looked fine, but the picture...

Acting on a hunch, she entered the picture into a Google reverse image search. As it turned out, the picture came from an Izu man's Facebook page, and not only was his personal information very different, he was happily married. Something wasn't right.

Logging out of Ashigara's account, she logged into her own (don't judge) and quickly fired off a PM to the account. The reply was surprisingly quick in coming.

 _Well, well, Takao. I see you found out about my ruse._

Takao frowned. _How do you know my name?_

 _Really, Takao. Who else would do this?_

That brought a scowl to the heavy cruiser's face. _Iku._

 _The one and only!_

 _And... why are you doing this?_

 _For the hell of it. That, and all the sexy selfies Ashigara's been sending._

Takao sighed. Of course.

 _I'll tell Ashigara._

 _I invite you to try._

Takao smirked, idly taking a quick screenshot. Iku wasn't going to get out of this that easily.

~o~

When Ashigara flounced out of her room a few days later - still dressed in the outfit Myoko had selected, a black tank top, pink jacket, denim miniskirt, and black stockings - Takao was there, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

"Ashigara, we need to talk," she solemnly intoned.

"Sure!" the heavy cruiser replied, grinning sunnily. "What's up?"

Takao winced at the expression and the prospect of breaking Ashigara's heart. "Uh... I don't know any delicate way to put this, so..." She took a deep breath and continued. "Your online boyfriend? He's fake. It's Iku running a false flag operation."

For a moment, Ashigara didn't respond, her smile still stuck on her face. "I don't believe you," she finally said.

Wordlessly, Takao handed her the screenshots. Ashigara looked them over, a spectral white/blue aura springing up around her. Takao took a nervous step back as Ashigara crumpled the paper and spectral wolves began to howl and circle around her.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" she howled, swinging her fist at Takao. The punch, backed by 130,000 horsepower, would have been bad enough on its own, except the wolves wrapped themselves around her fist and added shredding and exploding effects. Takao flew into the wall, cracking it, and slumped to the ground. She didn't get up.

White/blue aura blazing around her, wolves circling her, and her eyes glowing white, Ashigara sprinted off down the corridor for the submarine quarters.

~o~

Goto watched Ashigara steadily tear apart the submarine quarters. Iku had gone down quickly, and yet the Hungry Wolf had not let up. Reports of what Missouri had done had stopped him from trying to commit any shipgirls, not that that had stopped some of the more impulsive individuals. Musashi's and Tenryuu's concussed forms in the infirmary attested to how successful that'd been.

It also didn't escape Goto's notice that the crazed heavy cruiser was drawing steadily closer to the main base.

"Okay, people, I need ideas, and fast!" he barked.

"Well, isn't the problem that she can't get a boyfriend?" Yuubari hypothesized. Nobody noticed Captain Yonehara stiffen behind her. "Logically, if we get her a boyfriend, she'll calm down."

"And how, precisely, are we going to get her a boyfriend on such short notice?" Goto asked, pointedly not contradicting the conclusion.

"There's gotta be somebody on base who'd want to date her!" Mutsu insisted. "I mean, come on! Look at those legs, the motherly face, the huge... fuel tanks!" This last was accompanied by a visual demonstration on herself. "Seriously, I'm surprised she hasn't been asked out already."

The battleship flinched slightly as every person in the room stared at her.

"What? Like none of you have ever thought about it!" she snapped.

"Anyway..." Goto said slowly. "Mutsu's got a point. We can probably find volunteers. The question is how we're going to do that fast enough."

A loud crash and the slight shaking of the building only served to emphasize that point.

"I volunteer!"

Once again, all eyes fell on one person, though Captain Yonehara instead of Mutsu. The captain, for his part, flushed in embarrassment as he realized what he'd just said.

"Are you sure?" Goto asked, noting the smug grin on Kongo's face and filing it away for later. "This will be a long-term commitment. A few months, at least."

"I understand, sir, and I'll still do it," Yonehara replied.

"Alright," Goto nodded. "Get out there and do what you need to do. The rest of you, prepare to ambush her all at once. That can be plan B. Dismissed!"

As the shipgirls and officers cleared out, he turned to Kongo and gave her a flat glare. "Did you plan this?"

"Oh, goodness, no!" she giggled. "I couldn't have planned this if I tried! No, I just set a few things in motion. Hopefully this will resolve everything."

~o~

Captain Yonehara gulped. This was it. His heart was pounding and he could feel sweat forming all over his body. Not only was he confessing his feelings to Ashigara - something he'd been unable to do under normal circumstances - but she had also tapped into what the eggheads were calling "Abyssal Mode". He'd read the reports from San Diego on Missouri's episode: Louisiana, the most powerful gun shipgirl on the planet, had only been able to _slow her down._

Against a squishy human like him? He'd probably be reduced to the consistency of salsa.

Still, this had to be done. He had to risk it. To save the base, to save Ashigara - and because he loved her.

"Ashigara!" he barked, only barely flinching as she turned her white-eyed gaze on him. "I like you! Please go out with me!"

For a moment, he stood there in anticipation, hoping she would say yes but fearing she would say no. Finally, the aura and the wolves disappeared, and the heavy cruiser promptly tackled him to the ground, sobbing.

"Yes!" she cried. "Yesyesyesyesyes..."

~o~

"I love happy endings..." Kongo mused as she sipped her tea and watched the scene below.


	123. Rule 351

**351\. Stop bringing the Colts up to Baltimore, she will just start punching you in the face.**

The year was 1977, and Robert Irsay was in his office, trying to figure out how he was going to get a new damn stadium for the Baltimore Colts. Damn Hyman Pressman! They needed public funds to build a new stadium, and the shortsighted fool couldn't see what a benefit a new, modern stadium would be to the city of Baltimore. Moving the team was looking more and more attractive, but there was a nicely sized fanbase in Baltimore, and they'd just made the playoffs. Despite the generous offer from Phoenix, they would be staying in Baltimore for the foreseeable future.

Suddenly, there was an odd electrical whine, and a glowing energy vortex began to develop in his office, hurling papers every which way. The vortex grew brighter and brighter, before disgorging a rather pretty young woman in a sailor top and one of those new-fangled miniskirts, as well as a pair of goggles.

"My name is USS Baltimore!" she declared. "And you will not move the Colts to Indianapolis!"

Irsay felt his face scrunch up in confusion. "Indianapolis?!" he demanded. "Why would I move my team to that industrial wasteland?"

He paused and frowned as he actually thought about the proposal. It... actually wasn't a bad idea. Indianapolis was trying to move past the "industrial town" image, and he'd heard rumblings that they desired a premiere pro sports franchise as part of those plans. He'd have to talk to them, but if they could build him a new stadium...

"Say..." he said to himself, a wide grin splitting his face. "That's not a bad idea."

"Dammit!" Baltimore snapped, throwing up her hands, before a set of- were those naval guns?! And a smokestack?! And they were pointed at him. Irsay felt the first glimmerings of fear thrum through his chest. "No! I didn't go back in time just to see you move the team to Indianapolis!" What? "I can't be the cause of this!"

Suddenly, another energy vortex started up. This one disgorged a middle-aged man in a spiffy blue Colts jersey with a number 18 on it, and he had a passing resemblance to Archie Manning down in New Orleans. Pulling a knife from nowhere, he stabbed the young woman in the chest. For her part, Baltimore crumpled to the ground, and the man turned to him and said, "Draft me."

And then both were gone.

Despite the strangeness of the whole situation, Irsay quickly put it out of his mind. He had some phone calls to make.

~o~

Baltimore gasped, abruptly sitting up as she scrabbled at the stab wound in her chest. Thankfully, though it had somehow penetrated her armor belt, she had enough boiler power to keep functioning. A light giggle caught her attention, and she whirled around to see Cleveland laughing at her.

"I take it it didn't go well?" she smugly guessed.

"Shove it up your goonhole, Cleveland, I got stabbed by Peyton goddamn Manning of all people," Baltimore groused. "Oh well, at least I have the Ravens."

Baltimore would later blame the chest wound for her not noticing the kick that thundered into her face, knocking her to the ground. No one questioned the follow-up stomps connecting.

"Don't you ever bring up the Ravens in my presence again!" Cleveland shouted with just a hint of madness. "It's people like you and Art Modell that doomed the Browns to a lifetime of suck and heartbreak! Why the Browns are the Factory of Sadness! Why we're the only ones who get music videos set to 'Hello' instead of-of 'Rock You Like a Hurricane'!"

Two strong arms grabbed the light cruiser under the armpits as South Dakota hauled Cleveland off of Baltimore. Phoenix, in an admiral display of foresight, was already directing Vestal to see to the downed heavy cruiser. Besides the stab wound, Baltimore's face had been reduced to the approximate consistency and appearance of shredded beef brisket.

"Alright, now, you settle down," South Dakota said to the crazed light cruiser in your arms. "Here, try this." And with that, she shoved a bottle of Kentucky bourbon into her mouth. The alcohol slowly calmed down the light cruiser, until she slumped bonelessly in the battleship's arms.

"I swear to God, you'd think football was life or death with how much importance you cruisers put on it," she groused.

"Oh, no, it's not life or death," Phoenix replied cheerfully. "It's much more important than that."


	124. Rule 354

**Rule 354. Warspite is not some demon out to eat innocent German and Italian shipgirls. She's a shipgirl just like the rest of you, and she's not hiding under your bed.**

"Koln! Koln! Koln!"

The light cruiser in question groaned, getting out of bed and padding down the hall to the room her charges slept in. Sighing, she poked her head into the room where the destroyers Wolfgang Zenker, Bernd von Arnim, Erich Giese, and Erich Koellner slept. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Koln didn't expect anything to actually be wrong. German destroyers had a deserved reputation for being skittish and paranoid. She was not disappointed.

"Th-There's a Warspite under my bed," Erich Giese whimpered from under her covers. Her sisters were in a similar state, little more than lumps under their sheets.

"Oh for God's sake..." Koln groaned, covering her face. "How many times do I have to explain this to you guys? Warspite is just another shipgirl like you or me or Bismarck. She's not some evil demon out to eat innocent German and Italian shipgirls. She's in Alexandria now, do I need to point out how far away that is?"

The destroyers remained unconvinced and huddled under their covers.

"And anyway, why would she be under _your_ bed in particular?" Koln pointed out.

Suddenly, the closet creaked open, causing all five shipgirls to jump in place and stare fearfully at the door. Finally, a head with short-cut blond hair poked itself out.

"Huh. Oh, hey Koln," Warspite greeted. "Have any of you guys seen a disembodied head around here? Just randomly strewn about?"

Mutely, Koln shook her head.

"Shoot," Warspite swore. "Well, thanks. And FYI, you've got a portal to an ancient Egyptian tomb in here. Might wanna do something about that."

And with that, Warspite withdrew back into the closet.

For a second, silence blanketed the room before Giese drew in a breath and screamed at the top of her lungs.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

As if a switch had been thrown, the other three destroyers joined in the screaming, as did Koln, who also ran out of the room, bouncing off the wall and then careening down the hall.

~o~

"Any luck, Warspite?" Valiant asked as she punched another mummy square in the jaw, turning its head into a fine dust.

"Nope, sorry, that just led to Wilhelmshaven," Warspite replied, idly punting a mummified dog away as it tried to go for her ankles.

"This one leads to Pearl!" Queen Elizabeth announced as she ran out of a portal down the hall, smoking slightly. "I barely escaped with my life!"

"Goddammit, whose bright idea was it to go tomb diving on our off day?" Valiant demanded.

"Yours."

Valiant grimaced, before trying to rally. "Well, whose idea was it to take that gold box?"

"Yours."


	125. Rule 357

**Rule 357. Regardless of how much damage you can tank, clothing is a requirement, not an option.**

One thing about the Southern Philippines: it's hot there. Very hot. And when the locals start complaining about a heat wave? Well, then, hot takes on an entirely new meaning.

For the shipgirls of the temporary Joint Asiatic Task Force, on a mission to escort a Marine Expeditionary Force so they could set up an airbase and naval base on the north shore of Borneo and thus push south into Indonesia, the heat was just short of unbearable. The only bright spot was that Kaga wasn't with them; that would have taken things from unpleasant to flat-out deadly.

"Sooooo hoooooot..." Tone groaned as Chikuma steadily fanned her.

"You're telling me?" Miami retorted. "I'm a Florida native and _I_ think this is ridiculous."

Their two task forces - Miami, Vincennes, and Biloxi with destroyers for the Americans, Tone, Chikuma, Hiyo, and destroyers for the Japanese - were crowded onto the water a ways from the shore, and the cruisers were all suffering badly from the heat. The destroyers had happily set themselves to splashing each other, and so were mostly alright. And as for Hiyo...

"Killllll meeeeee..." Hiyo groaned. With her long skirt and heavy long-sleeved jacket, she was very clearly _not_ dressed for the weather.

"Later," Vincennes decided, wiping sweat from her brow. "Where the hell are Iowa and Musashi, anyway? At this rate, we're going to be late for the rendezvous with the Marines."

Nobody answered. The two battleships had been missing from breakfast, and nobody particularly wanted to disturb them if they wanted their beauty sleep. The waiting would continue.

Luckily, only a few minutes later the destroyers rushed up to them, babbling about how Iowa and Musashi were coming.

"Oh!" Marshall added. "They were naked, too!"

 _*Miami .exe has encountered a fatal error and has to restart.*_

"I'm sorry, but _what?!_ " Tone demanded.

"Yup," Hatsuzuki confirmed. "Naked except for their boots and rigging. See, here they come now."

The two battleships rounded the corner, and sure enough, they were just as Hatsuzuki described. Sadly, Tone only got a glimpse before Chikuma covered her sister's eyes.

"What the hell are you two thinking!?" she heard Biloxi demand.

"It's _hot_ , in case you haven't noticed," Musashi pointed out.

"Besides, we're fucking battleships. We can tank plenty of fucking damage without clothes, unlike you wimps," Iowa added.

"But-!"

"Oh for God's sake!" Miami snapped as her brain finished rebooting. "We're late as it is! They're coming like that or they're not coming at all, and I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather have two naked battleships than no battleships at all."

"Aw, thanks, Miami-"

"Don't fucking thank me yet, you guys are going in front."

~o~

"So..." Miami said to Tone as they passed by the insensate forms of many, many Abyssals, all bleeding from their noses. Occasionally, a destroyer made an attack run at them and was buried under a deluge of 6" and 5". "D'you think those two planned this?"

"Oh, hell yes," Tone immediately replied. "Musashi had a wardrobe malfunction a while back and got this exact reaction. Besides, have you _seen_ her usual outfit?"

In front of the cruisers, a Re-class battleship rounded around one of the islands, only to see Iowa and Musashi. A stream of blood spurted from her nose with such force that the Abyssal was actually propelled back. The fact that both battleships were luridly posing probably helped.

"Okay, since I don't think we want this to become a habit, you write to your Admiral and I'll write to mine?" Miami suggested as she watched some of the destroyers try to imitate said poses, only for Chikuma and Biloxi to smack them upside their heads.

"Deal."


	126. Rule 359

**Rule 359. While we appreciate the enthusiastic support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, that is not a reason to violate rule 357.**

The Rock Fortress Princess sat underwater just off the coast of Cadiz, using a periscope to keep an eye on the Spanish shipgirls stationed there. Of course, a normal periscope wouldn't give an image rivaling most satellite cameras, but hey, she was an Abyssal. She cheated.

In any case, her stated reason to the Island Siege Empress was that she wanted to get down the patrol patterns in preparation for another push on Gibraltar. And she was actually making note of said patterns. Not that she'd use them anytime soon. The Rock Fortress Princess had no intention of moving against Gibraltar anytime soon; she'd been punched in the face by enough carriers for one lifetime. No, she had another reason for doing this: it was October.

You see, one of the lesser-known traits of the Abyssals was that they were, well... they were all lesbians. If you can really apply sexual orientation labels to sapient rage spirits. The point is, they were all very interested in the female form. And October was the best month to appreciate it, at least in this part of the world. Why?

October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Now, the Rock Fortress Princess was unaware if any other shipgirls did this, but Canarias always went topless during that month. Well, topless except for a layer of pink paint, but that doesn't count. For the next thirty days, she would have all breasts she wanted. And then she could pop over to Florida on the last day for Halloween. That was always fun.

Rock Fortress Princess's mouth hung slightly open as she saw Canarias sortie. The heavy cruiser had clearly gotten a remodel at some point, because she was even more stacked than before. A grin split her face.

[I love October...] she said to herself as she started to slowly follow the Spanish force.

~o~

Some miles behind away from Rock Fortress Princess, Ark Royal, Renown, Sheffield, Enterprise, and their ever-rotating destroyer screen steamed after the Spanish patrol, ready in case any heavy Abyssals tried to jump them. Normally, they'd be closer, but, well...

"Yo, Ark," Renown said. "She doing it again?"

"Yup," Ark Royal replied, checking the feed of her Swordfish scouts.

"Ugh. I hate that girl's exhibitionist tendencies," Sheffield grumbled.

"I blame the Spanish for not finishing her superstructure," Renown chimed in.

"I just hate October. Fuck October!" Ark Royal spat.

Enterprise ignored the babblings of her comrades. She was busy reading a text from her girlfriend Yahagi and blushing.


	127. Rule 360

**Rule 360. Just a friendly reminder to all non-American shipgirls that the term "redskin" is generally considered derogatory.**

"Victory! Thunder Child!"

The ship of the line and torpedo ram stopped examining the town of Halifax and turned to the source of the noise: USS Constitution, running up to them with a pair of Canadian destroyers behind her. Both had distinctly Native American features.

"Connie!" Victory cried out, sweeping up the frigate in a tight hug.

"Well met, Constitution," Thunder Child said, saluting. "And who are the fine young ladies behind you?"

The two destroyers blushed, and Constitution swept her hand towards them. "Meet HMCS Nootka and HMCS Huron. They're gonna be our guides until we can catch the ferry to Portland."

"Ah, good, local guides! I had a question about the town." She pointed to a block a ways from the waterfront. "Why is the town divided so? It is as if a giant had scooped up the port at a point in the distant past, and then the town rebuilt that section."

"That's... actually not far from the truth," Huron replied uncomfortably. "In 1917, there was a collision in the harbor, and, uh, well..."

"One of them was an ammo ship and it blew up," Nootka cut in.

Thunder Child and Victory looked over the city, their eyes widening as they realized just how far away the dividing line between old and new was.

"Verily, that must have been a most titanic explosion," Thunder Child breathed.

"About 2.9 kilotons of TNT," Constitution confirmed. "Biggest man-made explosion ever until the Trinity test. Now come on, Nootka and Huron have a restaurant they want you guys to try."

"It _is_ time for lunch," Thunder Child mused. "Lead the way, our redskin friends!"

The torpedo ram surged forward, only to pause as she realized no one was following her. Turning around, she was treated to the sight of Nootka and Huron trembling in place, Constitution standing just behind them with one hand on her face and the other holding a confused Victory in place.

"God damn it, Thunder Child," the frigate groaned.

"What? Was it something I said?" Thunder Child wondered in confusion.

"Yooooouuuuuuu..."

Thunder Child couldn't help but take an involuntary step back as an increasingly familiar black aura sprung up around the destroyers.

"Oh hell."

~o~

"Alright, Thunder Child, what have we learned?" Constitution said to the battered ironclad.

"That 'redskin' is now considered a derogatory term, much like 'negro'," she intoned, holding an icepack to her left eye.

"And what have we learned, Nootka, Huron?" HMCS Haida said, her rabbit plushie sitting on her shoulder.

"That we should be a little less sensitive about stuff like that," the two destroyers chorused.

"Alright, good," Haida said, stepping back and looking around the ruins of Halifax harbor. As if on cue, a cargo crane creaked and fell over with a loud crash. "Ugh, this is gonna be a total pain in the ass to fix."

"Hey guys!"

All five shipgirls turned to see Victory walking up to them, a container of food in one hand and some of the food in her mouth.

"This 'poutine' stuff is pretty good!" She held it out towards Haida and Constitution. "Want some?"


	128. Rule 363

**Rule 363. There is not an Angel under Tenryuu's eyepatch.**

"Sisters!" Akatsuki announced, slapping a whiteboard with her pointer. On it was a surprisingly good drawing of the Tenryuu's head. "We are here on a mission! A mission to determine what is under Tenryuu's eyepatch!"

"Nope," Inazuma immediately said, rising from her seat. "Sorry, nanodesu, but I've seen the Naruto episode. I know how this goes, nanodesu."

"Wait!" Akatsuki pleaded. "You don't have to participate, you can just watch!"

Inazuma looked her elder sister dead in the eye. "Do I have film rights, nanodesu?"

"Yes!"

Inazuma smiled and sat back down in her seat.

"Alright, first we need a hyp- hipp-"

"Hypothesis?" Hibiki supplied.

"Yes, that!" Uncapping a dry-erase marker, Akatsuki scribbled down a word: angel. "I think there's an angel under there!"

"How the heck does that work?" Ikazuchi scoffed.

"Where else would Tenryuu keep hers?!" Akatsuki reasoned. "Because Tatsuta's got that halo thingy,and that's an angel symbol, so logically it's her angel! And Tenryuu has to have one, too!"

Hibiki and Ikazuchi traded openly skeptical glances.

"Well, fine!" Akatsuki snapped. "What're your big ideas, then?"

"I think... she's hiding a Geass," Ikazuchi intoned grimly.

"That doesn't exist, silly," Akatsuki giggled.

"Says the girl who believes in angels and Santa Claus, nanodesu," Inazuma countered, grinning.

"Santa's real," Hibiki hastily cut in before Akatsuki could start crying. "Soviet Air Force used to track him over the North Pole."

Inazuma simply kept grinning.

"Hey, we're getting way off topic!" Ikazuchi cut in. "I'm right, aren't I? How else would she be so strong for a light cruiser?"

"We'll file that one under maybe," Akatsuki decided, ignoring the indignant shriek of "Hey!" from Ikazuchi. "So! Hibiki, what's your hypothesis?"

"Beam cannon," the white-haired destroyer answered with a rare grin. "Melts battleships."

"Ooooooohhhhh..." Ikazuchi and Akatsuki oohed, sparkles in their eyes.

"Well," Inazuma said, standing up again. "There's only one way to find out. To the baths!"

~o~

Many people sing in the shower. It's a way to relieve boredom, and the water is kinda rhythmic. Most people don't hum heavy metal tunes. Nor air guitar in the shower.

Tenryuu was not most people.

The light cruiser let the water cascade over her, carefully allotting a small amount of Sparkly Magical Shipgirl Bullshit(TM) to prevent herself from slipping on the slick tile.

Sadly, she was cut out of her headbanging by the bathroom door creaking open. Pausing, she glared out onto the main bathroom area of the dorm she shared with Tatsuta. The silhouette she saw was not her sister, that was for sure. And while Tenryuu didn't know who was going into her bathroom while she was showering, quite frankly she didn't care.

Raising her arm, she yelled, "Get out of here you little pervert, before I slap ya silly!"

Sadly, the silhouette didn't go away, so Tenryuu reached out and pulled on her sword, letting it float in the air and point at the intruder. That did it.

"IYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Tenryuu grinned, letting the sword float back to the counter, before frowning. That sounded an awful lot like Ikazuchi.

Shrugging, Tenryuu went back to her shower. Tatsuta could handle the puberty talk this time.

~o~

"Well, that didn't work," Inazuma mused as she looked over the footage. Comedy gold, and you couldn't see anything of Tenryuu besides a silhouette. "Time for Plan 2, nanodesu!"

"Isn't that supposed to be Plan B?" Hibiki drawled.

"Ah, but that assumes I only have twenty-six plans, nanodesu. For now, we wait."

~o~

In the dark of the night, Hibiki slipped into Tenryuu's room, making her way to the sleeping light cruiser. She was sprawled out on her bed in a thoroughly undignified manner, an image not helped by the fact she was clad in only a tank top and panties.

Slowly, and with great care, Hibiki crept up onto the bed. When she got no reaction, she reached over and started to ease off the eyepatch. It took all of her concentration and focus, but eventually Hibiki got it off with nothing more than Tenryuu curling up in a fetal position.

Still, that was the least of Hibiki's worries, for under the eyepatch was - another eyepatch.

"Bozhe moi..." the destroyer groaned. She reached over for the eyepatch again-

And caught Tenryuu's fist to the head as the light cruiser rolled over in her sleep. Eyes watering, Hibiki did the sensible thing: she bolted, diving out the window.

~o~

"Alright, nanodesu," Inazuma said the next morning at breakfast. "Time for Plan 3."

The destroyer turned around and asked Tenryuu, "Hey, what's under your eyepatch, nanodesu?"

Tenryuu blinked even as the other three Akatsuki sisters turned white. She reached up and flipped up the eyepatch, revealing a depressingly familiar eye. "Nothing but a normal eye. I mostly wear it because it looks cool." She grinned. "I bet you guys thought there was something crazy under there."

"Yeah, Hibiki thought you had a beam cannon, nanodesu."

Tenryuu blinked, before slapping her forehead. "Dammit, why don't I have a beam cannon?!" A slow grin spread across her face. "Be right back, I gotta make a phone call to Vladivostok."

~o~

Kalinin was working on a shoulder-mounted version of her death ray when her phone rang. "Da?"

 _"Yo, Kalinin. How do you feel about fitting one of your death rays in an eyeball-sized package?"_

The heavy cruiser felt a thrill of curiosity run through her. "Oh, now that would be a challenge! I gotta miniaturize everything, except the power source, that can run off the steam boilers. Though that's a challenge in and of itself. Maybe..."

Tenryuu chuckled over the line at Kalinin sciencing out. "Call _me when you figure out something, okay?"_

"Da," Kalinin absently replied. Now, where did she put the flux capacitor and the plutonium?


	129. Rule 368

**Rule 368: You cannot upgrade yourself by groping Ayanami. Please stop trying.  
**  
Ayanami whistled to herself as she carried a box of chocolate chocolate chip cookies for delivery to Fubuki. Her poor eldest sister worked so hard, she needed a break. Plus, she needed to talk to someone about a problem she had, and the senior destroyer was as good a choice as anyone.

As a nice demonstration of said problem, Ayanami sighed wearily as she saw Kiyoshimo approach her with an all-too-familiar gleam in her eyes.

"Battleship upgrade-!" she shouted, drawing back her hand. "Get!"

The hand shot forward like a spear, landing on Ayanami's right breast. Nothing happened. Kiyoshimo's grin fell from her face, and she began to push and knead at the breast, as if willing her hand to sink in.

You see, Admiral Goto had recently approved screening of End of Evangelion for movie night after considerable effort on the part of the fleet's anime buffs. One of the consequences of that, besides the summary banning of orange Kool-Aid and quite a bit of counseling for many of the viewers, was ships coming up to Ayanami and groping her right breast, hoping to get their upgrades early. This despite the fact that she looked absolutely nothing like Rei Ayanami! It was a thoroughly vexing situation, and one she was heartily sick of.

The flat stare she sent Kiyoshimo's way conveyed this very well. "Are you done?" she deadpanned.

"Uh, yes! Yes, sorry, I just-" Kiyoshimo blabbered before gathering herself and bowing. "My deepest apologies."

"Mm, it's a start," Ayanami decided, pulling out a whistle. "But not good enough." With that, she took a deep breath and blew, filling the corridor with its shrill shriek.

"Jesus!" Kiyoshimo swore as she covered her ears. "What was that-!"

Anything Kiyoshimo might have said was interrupted by a blur slamming into her from the side and tackling her to the ground. Tenryuu smoothly flipped onto the destroyer's back, whipped out a pair of handcuffs, and snapped them over Kiyoshimo's wrists.

"And that's a sexual harassment charge for you," Tenryuu said sternly, hauling the destroyer to her feet. "Come on, let's go see the Admiral. And Ayanami?" The light cruiser looked over her shoulder and winked. "Get those cookies to your sister, okay?"

"Yes ma'am!" Ayanami barked, before resuming her journey.

The cookies were delicious.

~o~

Ayanami flinched as a Ne-class heavy cruiser porpoised out of the water in front of her. That flinch quickly morphed into a tired frown as the heavy cruiser reached out and grabbed her right breast.

"No, it doesn't end the world, either," she sighed.

For a moment, the Abyssal simply sat there in confusion at the lack of giant, naked, blue-haired girls, before eight Long Lance torpedoes tore into its soft underbelly. The monster cried out in pain before slumping over and falling into the ocean depths, dead.

Sighing, Ayanami turned to the rest of the Abyssals. "Anyone else want to try?" she growled, pointedly reloading her torpedo tubes as she did so. The expressions on the Abyssals' face clearly stated that none of them did.


	130. Rule 370

**370\. The use of Laser-Guided Tama is hereby forbidden.**

 **AN: Another guest chapter, this time by the great Sheo Darren of Spacebattles.**

The Abyssal Re-class battleship looked cross-eyed as it tried to peer at the red dot of light dancing on its forehead. At first it thought it was a new shipgirl weapon, perhaps one of those American-designed laser CIWS. But after a moment the Abyssal realized the laser wasn't doing any damage to it.

[Aren't you supposed to shine that into my eyes to blind me?] it asked the smugly-grinning Yuubari. [What is that supposed to do, anyway?]

And in that exact moment a hissing Tama landed on the Abyssal's puzzled face.

[AAARRRGGGHHH!] the Re-class shrieked as the _Kuma_ class light cruiser gnawed and clawed at its head. [GETITOFFMEGETITOFFMEGETITOFFME!]

"It works!" Yuubari cackled. "I'm a genius! Take that, Phoenix, Vanguard! Who's the superior weapons engineer now?!"

"Yuubari..." growled Ooyodo. She could already feel the splitting headache that was surely ruining Admiral Goto's day now.

"I'm not yet done!" Yuubari lobbed a water balloon at the Battleship Princess that the Re-class had been helping guard. What were two light cruiser doing assaulting two battleships? Well, Yuubari had made mention of special weapons, and everyone else was busy fighting the rest of the screen.

Anyway, the flimsy container burst apart on impact, showering the Abyssal commander in-

[What is this sticky golden liquid dripping all over my face?]

"Scoop!" Aoba whooped, popping out of nowhere and snapping photo after photo of the honey-drenched Abyssal.

"Aoba!" Ooyodo barked, reaching over to confiscate the nosy reporter's camera, but Aoba had a knot of speed over her and dodged. "Hand that over right now!"

"No way! I need money! Besides, there's no rule forbidding taking erotic photos of Abyssals and making money off them!"

"No! Just no!"

The curious Battleship Princess ran her tongue upon her soaked lips. [Oh... it's sweet... and delicious... I like it.] She broke into a beautiful smile. [If humans can make such a wonderful thing, perhaps we Abyssals can actually live in peace with them...]

Right as she considered a Heel Face Turn, poor BB Hime promptly got mauled by Kuma, Kumano, and Abukuma. Redemption Equals Taiha (red damage).

Yuubari grimaced. "I was just aiming for Kuma, but The Three Bears is overkill..."

"Yuubari! They are not bears!" Ooyodo snapped. "And call them off! The Battleship Princess was going to defect!"

"And now! For the finishing blow!" Yuubari cried out, ignoring the secretary ship. She reached into her bag and-

"Denied!"

By now Ooyodo had enough. She snatched the large leg bone out of Yuubari's hand and began beating the light cruiser's brown-haired head.

"Quit it, Yuubari!" lectured the bespectacled command cruiser. "You were bad enough when you and Aoba tricked Lebe and Max into dressing up as Shimakaze and Amatsukaze and marketed the photo shoot as Danke Danke Revolution!"

"But we needed the money and no one got hurt anyway-"

"GARURUUU!"

On cue, Tokitsukaze and Ro-500 sank their teeth into Yuubari's buttocks.

"AAAHHH! I GOT RABIES!"


	131. Rule 371

**Rule** **371\. Attempting to deploy USS Sealion against Kongou is forbidden.**

 **AN: Yes, two guest chapters in a row. This one is also by Sheo Darren of SB.**

~o~

 **Three Weeks After Sherlock Kongo (See Rule 91)**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_

The recently repaired Iku grumbled to herself. Of all her injuries, the most ignominious was the one dealt to her ballast tanks. Her chest had been enclosed within a plaster cast for weeks. Her chest!

Boobies aren't supposed to be breakable! They were soft and squishy, not-

~o~

 _Weaken starboard freeboard._

 _And fracture._

 _Break cracked holding tank._

~o~

She shuddered. Iku had thought she had nothing to fear from Kongou, who had been sunk by a submarine, because she, too, was a submarine, the Sniper of the Seas.

She had been arrogant, mistaken. But now she had learned from her mistake and was ready for another go.

The only one who can destroy the 'Indestructible' was the one who sank her in the first place.

"Ikukukuuu... it's time to implement Operation Unspeakable Sea Mammal..."

~o~

"So, you want to ask the US Navy to send USS _Sealion_ over for joint training with us?"

"Yes!" Iku said in as innocent a tone as she could muster while also jiggling as subtly as possible.

Admiral Goto was torn. On the one hand, Iku's real intentions were as transparent as the shot glass he used and abused practically every night since he started commanding ship-girls.

On the other hand, if it got Kongou off him for a few days...

"I'll look into it," he hedged.

"Thank you, Admiral!"

"Stop wiggling, Iku."

~o~

 **One Week Later**

As was her wont, Kongou went to the docks to greet the newly-arrived American shipgirl. Her escort for today was Urakaze, the destroyer being happy to spend some time with her Kongou-oneesama.

"A new face has arrived! It's the English-born returnee, Kongou! Nice to meet you!"

"It's me, Urakaze, nice to meet 'ya."

"Oh, hello, Miss Kongou, Miss Urakaze," replied the black-haired American in the pink swimsuit. "I'm USS Sealion."

The Japanese fast battleship and her escort went into full crash stops as the name of the unspeakable sea mammal registered on their pretty heads.

So did Iku from her hiding spot in the shrubbery lining the docks. Because the newcomer wasn't the _Balao_ class SS-315 that she asked for.

The _Sargo_ class submarine (SS-195) look confused by the cold reception party. "Is there something wrong?" Sealion asked the frozen Kongou and pale Urakaze.

"Admiral Goto lied to me!" Iku realized all too late. "He asked for a different _Sealion_!"

~o~

In his office, Admiral Goto smirked. TEITOKU DOORI.

~o~

"Nooo!" Urakaze frantically backpedaled before falling on her butt. "No no no NO NOOO!"

"Woah! Are you all right?" Sealion asked as she took a step towards the panicking destroyer, only to find Kongou smoothly sliding in between them like Death warmed over. "Huh? Miss Kongou?"

~o~

Her advantage, my trauma, desu.

My advantage, her confusion, desu.

Incoming spread, Mk 14s. But updated contact pistol and magnetic exploder, desu.

Use her slow diving speed to counter, desu.

 _To Mental!Kongou's surprise, her mental calculations were disrupted by a snarl of rage._

Not again! You really think I'll let you Japs get the drop on me again like in Cavite?

 _And Mental!Sealion began fighting back in earnest, unknowingly taking a page from Samuel B. Roberts by charging in close beneath Kongou's guns._

3"/50 to bridge! 50 rpm! Plus quad machine guns!

 _The pop gun wouldn't have harmed Mental!Kongou, much less the machine guns. But they did make her flinch and reassess._

Ahh... There we find Captain Reach who helmed you and your successor. Competent... but predictable, desu.

 _A full broadside of BURNING (6" secondaries) LOVE sent Mental!Sealion reeling. But the submarine managed to stay on her feet thanks to her building rage._

The f*ck did you say about my skipper, you shitty battlecruiser?

 _Things kind of went downhill from there._

Running dry, _Mental!Kongou actually panted about half an hour into the imaginary slugfest._

Need a new plan, _Mental!Sealion wheezed, as both she and her opponent were reduced to near-nakedness._

Trauma taking its toll. As I feared... PTSD makes defense untenable, desu.

This... looks really shitty...

Conclusion... inevitable, desu.

Unless...

~o~

In real-time, Kongou and Sealion simultaneously launched their opening moves and final moves.

They smiled, shook hands, and then hugged like the best of friends reuniting after a long period of separation.

"You're strong, desu!" Kongou praised.

"You're not so bad yourself!" Sealion assured her.

"I'm... saved?" Urakaze wondered before she was helped onto her feet.

Iku struggled to prop herself up after boobs-plant (like a face-plant, but with one's big boobs getting in the way) into the ground.

"Ooow..."

When she looked up, Iku found Kongou, Sealion, and Urakaze regarding her like a trio of cats that have noticed a goldfish has flopped out of its bowl.

"Uh," sweated Iku. "Lie down with me, girls?"

"All guns! FIRE!"

"Driving you back!"

"You don't have anything like these!"

"Iku... is sinking!"

~o~

 **At The Same Time**  
 _Pearl Harbor, Oahu_

Sealion II and Seadragon shuddered. "I have a bad feeling about Sealion..."

~o~

 **Later That Day**  
 _The Infirmary_

"And what have we learned?" Admiral Goto asked levelly.

"That you are a meanie, Admiral," pouted Iku from her booth in the repair docks.

"And?" pressed the British-Japanese fast battleship and the American submarine adorning Goto's arms, Kongou having generously decided to share her admiral with Sealion during the latter's visit.

"Kuuu..."


	132. Rule 373

**373: Aoba is no longer allowed to engage in blogging or "gonzo journalism".**

"WHAT?!"

Arizona nearly jumped a foot in the air as Pennsylvania's shout wafted through the corridor. It was a decidedly unfamiliar sound, given the source. Slowly, and with great trepidation, the battleship poked her head into the room they shared at Naval Base Bremerton.

"Dare I ask what's got you all worked up?" Arizona said, taking a calming sip of coffee.

"Look at this!" Pennsylvania barked, pointing to the screen of her computer.

Arizona stepped forward, and yelped as her sister grabbed her head and forcibly dragged her in front of the computer screen. She scanned over the headline, and promptly splintered the desk under her fingers.

"Keep reading," said a grim-faced Pennsylvania.

As Arizona kept reading through the blog post, her face steadily darkened and her body began to shake.

"Easy," Pennsylvania said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"That _bitch_ ," Arizona spat, whirling around. "Is accusing us of-of an _incestuous relationship_. And you're telling me to _calm down?!_ "

Pennsylvania held up a hand for calm, jabbing a message into her phone with the other. "Don't worry, Zuikaku owes me a favor. She'll handle this."

~o~

"WHAT?!"

Gneisenau frantically looked around, hoping that Tirpitz or Prinz Eugen were around. They were far better equipped to handle a pissed-off Bismarck than her. Sadly, the only shipgirls around were a bunch of torpedo-boats looking even more scared than she felt. Sighing, Gneisenau eased open the door and poked her head in.

"Bismarck?" she said gingerly. "Are you okay?"

"This blogger has the absolute _gall_ to claim that I'm fat!" Bismarck roared, pointing an accusatory finger at the computer on her desk. "I am _not_ fat!" she continued, slapping her toned stomach. "This is all Teutonic muscle and bone!"

"O-Of course, Bismarck," Gneisenau agreed. "Uh, who's it by, exactly?"

"I dunno, she just calls herself 'Intrepid Reporter-chan!' All I know is that she is definitely a she, and definitely a shipgirl," Bismarck grumbled.

Gneisenau cast her mind back to the letters U-511 sent back, and an evil thought popped into her head. One that could... redirect the rage.

"Ah, I think I know who that is," the battlecruiser said impishly. "Tell you what, I'll write to U-511 and have her take care of things."

"Hmph, fine," Bismarck huffed, crossing her arms. "But if I see another blog post like this, I'm not going to be responsible for my actions."

~o~

"WHAT ZE HECK?!"

Strasbourg sighed. There went her high-strung sister again, probably overreacting to something innocuous.

Those readers who are familiar with the Dunkerque sisters might consider this hypocrisy of the highest order, but in truth Dunkerque was more high-strung than her younger sister. Many an Italian shipgirl had said - behind closed doors, of course - that it was the former's Teutonic blood expressing itself. Of course, only a handful of shipgirls, all French, could tell at all, but the difference was there, no matter how slight.

But I digress. Strasbourg steeled herself and showed herself into their room. "What seems to be ze problem?" the battleship said, fanning herself in the Dakar heat.

"Zis-Zis Japanese _strumpet_ had ze absolute _gall_ to accuse us of not being French!" Dunkerque spat. "Look! She claims that you are a filthy Hun and zat I am a _limey,_ of all zings!"

Strasbourg's face darkened. If there was one berserk button they both had, it was being accused of not being French. Luckily, most people said the opposite upon meeting them. "And did she say why?"

"Because ze cities we are named after were not French for a century or two!" Dunkerque paused, looking over the article again. "Oh, and because we don't _look_ French. And she insulted Paris as well. Classy."

"Okay, zat does it!" Strasbourg snapped, blonde hair flying as she whipped out her phone. "Zis is too much! I shall task Kirishima wit finding ze culprit!"

~o~

"I can't believe her!"

Ro-500 and Zuikaku looked on in bemusement and more than a little fear as Kirishima paced through the storeroom they'd commandeered, raging about Aoba and cursing her to her tenth generation of ancestors. It was really quite impressive. Still, both shipgirls kept a close eye on the battleship's glasses.

"So, how are we going to do this?" Zuikaku asked out of the corner of her mouth. "Smashing her camera and computer? Another beating? Loss of ice cream privileges?"

"No, no, and cruel, but no," Ro-500 replied. The normally innocent-looking submarine right now looked downright vicious. "She'll be expecting that. She won't be expecting us putting the shoe on the other foot."

"Oh?" Zuikaku raised a curious eyebrow. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, first we need a Tumblr account..."

~o~

"So, uh, where is Aoba, anyway?" Kako asked Furutaka and Kinugasa.

"Let's just say the Tumblr SJW brigade found her blog and began throwing all kinds of accusations of racism, stereotyping, and cultural appropriation," Kinugasa answered between mouthfuls of rice. "Or rather, they found a Tumblr devoted to pointing out all the examples of such in her blog, with a link to said blog."

"It doesn't help that Kagero jumped in to try and defend her," Furutaka added. "I mean, it got rid of the SJWs for a while, but my brain still hurts from reading her comments."

"Suffice to say, Aoba's not leaving her room anytime soon," Kinugasa finished.


	133. Rule 379

**Rule 379. Beagle is to return the tortoise to the Galapagos as soon as possible.**

"What in the world is Beagle doing?"

HMS Keith glanced over to where HMS Codrington was going over the credit-card purchases of their charges. It was a policy enacted after the Argentinian destroyers bought Bolivia and it was discovered that Maori and Mohawk were planning to try and buy Luxembourg. "What's up?"

"It's just..." Codrington waved her hand aimlessly at the printout. "The biggest expense I can see on here is freaking cheese."

"Aww, come on, it can't be that-"

"Genuine, imported Wisconsin cheddar."

Keith closed her mouth with an audible click. Importing _anything_ to the British Isles had become extraordinarily expensive, as it needed to either be carried by sea in massive transatlantic convoys or carried across the English Channel in relatively small ships. Or, in many cases, _under_ the channel, but that still only provided a small fraction of Britain's needs. Wisconsin cheese would qualify as a transatlantic good, and the destroyer leader winced as she thought of how much that must cost.

Checking the ledger, her eyes widened. That... was a lot more cheese than she expected.

"What in the world would she need that much cheddar cheese for? Wisconsin cheddar, no less," Keith wondered, mystified.

"I don't know," Codrington answered, rising to her feet. "But I aim to find out."

~o~

The tortoise was old. Very old. He had lived on the Galapagos Islands when the oldest shipgirl was laid down, and he expected to outlive most of them. He stared vacantly at the young girl in front of him, and mentally wondered what she'd taste like.

"Hey, Cook, how's it going?" the girl chirped.

 **"t̼̗̩̼͚̞h͡e҉̝ ̴t҉͖i̯̻̙̖m̠͙͚e͉̬ ̳̗̟ha͇̞̜͎͙̘̺ṣ̞̦̝̬̜͢ ̫̳͠c̷̥͙̳o̪̦̟̝̲͚͠m̗̙͓ȩ͈̙ ͓̙̯m̸̮o̖͖̪̥͖r̗ta̠̮͔̭̣͇̲͠l̗͞  
̛̮̰i̪̼̕ ̬̮̘w͓̝͍̥͚͠i̦l̙͚̪̻̘l҉ͅ f͍̭̪e̼̙̥̦ͅa͖̹͘s̱̙̣͠ṱ̩̭͉̱̳ ͇̠͚͙͘u̩͖͕̣̹ͅp̨͓͈o҉̘̲͓͎n͓̦ ͎̀yo̺u̲r͖̯ ͡f̷̱̤̭̟͎le̫̫s̞͞h̻̼̯̳̀"**

The girl pulled out a chunk of that delectable yellow substance. "I got your favorite!" she cooed. "Wisconsin cheese!"

 **"M̱m̞̲͉̹͚͔m̷͉̱̙̗̙͎̫m̜.̛ F̧̲͍̯̭i͚͠n̕e̱̩̮̬̗͡.̛͍̬͍̖ ̨̺̝̹̟͉̻̼Y̳o͉̩̭̲u̱̲̺͍̲͇ ̲͙̠̞̮̞l̯͕̜̼͡ͅi҉̳͍̻͇͙ve̛̳̞̟̳̻.̢̙̯̞͇ ̺̳̞͎"** the tortoise grudgingly decided as he munched on the cheddar, resisting the urge to bite off her fingers. **"̝̜͇̖͝F̙̥͡o̭͈͕̙͡r͖ ̜̙̲̘̻̀ͅṋ͕̖o̸̥̰̩̮̦w̞͚̞͠.҉̤̤͉͙̣ ̯̙̭̯"  
**  
Suddenly, the door banged open, and two larger ones barged in, shouting something. The tortoise didn't mind; he had his cheese.

~o~

"- cannot believe what you were thinking!" Codrington barked. "A tortoise! A Galapagos Tortoise, a protected species!"

"B-But I feed him really well!" Beagle protested. "And he's really fun to ride, too!"

"Nope! Unacceptable!" Codrington retorted, crossing her arms in front of her. "The tortoise will just have to go back to the islands. And that is _final!_ "

"But how are we going to get him back?" Beagle asked innocently.

Codrington froze as her brain shut down attempting to figure out an answer. It was an honest question; no ships went there these days, due to the looming Abyssals and the need for every ship to be ferrying essential goods.

"Well..." Eagle tossed in as she tilted her head into the room. "We could always cook it up and eat it. I've got some tortoise recipes I want to try."

"No!" Beagle snapped. "No cooking!"


	134. Rule 384

**384\. Ship girls whose original selves that are currently museums, stop creeping out the tourists with ghost stories.**

"Remind me what we're doing here again?" Enterprise said as she tapped her foot on the flight deck of the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda.

"Well, Hornet wanted to give us a tour of her ship self," Houston - the heavy cruiser, not the light cruiser - replied, examining a rather battered F-4 Phantom chained to the deck. "The Essex Hornet, not your sister, I mean. And honestly, it's nice seeing all these newer aircraft up close. So lighten up a bit, E."

"But did she have to schedule it for Halloween?" the carrier demanded, indicating the jack-o-lanterns parked next to the island hatch and the orange-and-black banners strung everywhere.

Houston looked up from her examination to give Enterprise an incredulous look. "Wait, are you scared?" She grinned. "The Grey Ghost is scared of some Halloween decorations! Oh, this is rich!"

"I am not," Enterprise ground out. "Scared of the goddamn _decorations!_ It's just... you know the ghost stories about Hornet?"

"Yeah?"

"She's probably gonna use them to try and scare us, and you know how much patience I have for that sort of thing."

"Which is none at all," Houston finished, straightening up from her examination. "Look, I'm gonna go check out the Tomcat, let me know when Hornet shows up."

Barely five minutes later, Enterprise waved down Houston, having gotten a text from Hornet. "She says to meet her down in the wardroom," the carrier reported.

"Seriously?" Houston grumbled. "We were there fifteen minutes ago! She couldn't have told us then?"

"Let's just get this over with," Enterprise sighed.

The two ships re-entered the island, and began to make their way down the main escalator when they heard a hatch creak and slam shut behind them. Whirling around, they saw the hatch to the flight deck not only closed, but sealed tight.

"Very funny, Hornet!" Enterprise called out, walking back up to the hatch and throwing it open. "Now what's the big ide-"

There was no one there.

"What."

"Uh, E?" Houston said, trepidation coloring her voice. "Was the elevator in the up position when she left?"

Enterprise glanced over to that section of the deck, noting that it was indeed up now. "I-I don't know. We should've heard it if it moved."

"Let's just find Hornet, okay?"

Shivering, the two made their way down the escalator, and then down another ladder to the second deck. But before they could turn towards the wardroom, they heard voices coming from behind a closed hatch. Specifically, voices talking a very familiar subject: flying.

Enterprise surged forward, opened the hatch, and was faced with the pilot's ready room. The very empty pilot's ready room.

"What the hell?" she breathed. "Houston, did you-"

"Yeah, I heard it," the heavy cruiser replied, grinning. "Come on, she was just piping in voices or something, trying to get you worked up."

"That makes sense," Enterprise sighed. Closing the door behind her, she followed Houston to the wardroom, the inside of which was mercifully normal.

Well, normal except for the khaki-clad man sitting at one of the tables, drinking coffee. It smelled delicious.

"Oh, hey, a docent," Enterprise said. "Maybe we can-"

Houston's hand on her shoulder stopped her, and the carrier glanced back to see Houston looking wide-eyed at the figure. "E. I know every docent on board. There is exactly one under the age of sixty, and _that's not him._ "

Looking again, Enterprise shivered as she realized that the figure wasn't wearing the blue shirt, jacket, and cap that the museum's docents wore. In comparison, Houston's hands on her shoulders, the heavy cruiser trying to hide behind her, didn't bother her in the slightest.

Suddenly, the figure got up and began walking for the entrance. Houston and Enterprise scuttled out of his way, and watched him go through the door before hastily following.

And yet, in the corridor outside, there was nobody.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" Houston whimpered.

"I-I don't know," Enterprise groaned as she plopped down into one of the chairs. Suddenly, the hatches to the wardroom all slammed shut simultaneously. Then the lights went out, plunging the compartment into pitch darkness. And then the sounds came.

Hatches banging open and shut all over the ship. The elevators running up and down. The drone of piston engines and the clanging of falling tools above on the hanger deck. Even the steady hum of the steam turbines in the heart of the ship. Oh, and the temperature dropping ten degrees. Can't forget that.

Both shipgirls froze as icy hands placed themselves on their shoulders. Turning around, they saw two spectral airmen behind them - floating an inch off the ground.

"AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!" they both screamed, closing their eyes.

When the two opened them again, the lights were back on, the hatches were open, and the sounds were gone.

"Hey, guys, you ready for the Hornet Spooktacular tour?!" Hornet announced as she strode in, a billowing black cape on her shoulders and a headband holding two candles to her head, before freezing as she took in Enterprise's and Houston's trembling forms. "What happened to you guys?"

Both shipgirls took one look at Hornet before fainting dead away.

"Well," she stated, grinning. "Good job, guys. I didn't think you'd be able to pull it off, not against E."

Next to her, a veritable sea of ghosts gave her whoops of encouragement and thumbs up, before all departing to... somewhere.

Hornet's smile grew fond as she watched them go, before she turned to you. Yes, you, the one with the computer.

"Come visit some time," she said, grinning toothily. "It'll be grand. Unless, of course, this is too spooky for you."

The sound of diabolical laughter filtered through the corridor as Hornet steadily vanished into thin air.


	135. Rule 389

**Rule 389. Victory, stop glaring at people. It's making them uncomfortable.**

Revenge carefully meandered through the small crowd of shame-faced protesters heading away from the Portsmouth base's entrance. The battleship frowned; normally they hung around at least until lunchtime. And when they left they looked bored, not ashamed.

As she broke out of the crowd, she saw the source of the protesters' early exit: Victory, perched on a guard tower, glaring balefully at the retreating backs of the protesters. She shivered as the ship of the line turned her gaze on her, sizing her up. She was suddenly acutely aware of what she was wearing: a basketball jersey over a white t-shirt, black basketball shorts, a white cap on backwards, gold chains around her neck, and white basketball shoes. Not to mention her pounding hangover.

Revenge picked up her pace and ducked into the base. Jesus Christ, Victory was scary!

It was at breakfast that her partners-in-crime from last night, Indefatigable and Thunder Child, joined her, looking equal parts peeved and nervous.

"'Twas quite low of you, leaving us to the constables like that," Thunder Child complained.

"Ah'm not th' one who ran up to 'em screaming 'Fuck da police!' while brandishin' a loaded cannon," Revenge retorted, looking pointedly at Indefatigable and the impressive shiner over her right eye.

"They didn't have to be that rough..." the frigate grumbled. "A night in the drunk tank was bad enough!"

"Mayhaps your... antics with Warrior and Trincomalee shortened your leash," Thunder Child put forward. That prompted a snort of laughter from Revenge.

"Ha! Fits a bitch like her!"

"Fuck you guys, seriously," Indefatigable grumbled good-naturedly, tucking into some scrambled eggs. "But man, I wasn't expecting Victory to be at the gates this morning. That glare of hers..." She shuddered dramatically.

"Verily, her gaze rivals that of any foe," Thunder Child agreed. "Even dragons would be hard-pressed to match it."

Revenge gave her a sidelong look. "When didja fight a fuckin' _dragon?_ "

A commotion sounded from deeper within the base, and what looked like the entire submarine population of Portsmouth streamed in through the doors, crying and shrieking at the top of their lungs. Several shipgirls were trampled underfoot as the stampede passed through. Bare moments after it passed, Victory walked through and began ordering breakfast.

"Y'think Maidstone's gonna complain to Admiral Collingwood?" Revenge wondered.

"Sucker bet," Indefatigable replied.

~o~

Thirty minutes later saw Victory sitting in Admiral Collingwood's office, the Admiral himself staring sternly at her.

"I've been getting complaints about you glaring at people," Collingwood began. "Now, I don't mind when that's to scare off protesters, but when you're doing it to the shipgirls-"

"Did you know that Revenge, Thunder Child, and Indefatigable were 'out on the town' last night, as it were?" Victory interrupted.

"Yes, and I honestly don't care," Collingwood retorted. "Indefatigable and Thunder Child only sortie if the situation is dire, and Revenge... well. She hasn't messed up a mission yet. And that doesn't explain the submarines."

Sighing, Victory looked the Admiral in his eyes and applied the same glare.

"Victory, you know that won't work on me," Collingwood stated. Before he'd even finished the sentence, he found himself sweating with the effort of keeping his eyes on hers. Victory's head seemed to get closer and closer, or perhaps bigger and bigger. Regardless, the effect only intensified as time went on, and the Admiral found himself leaning back in his seat.

Finally, Admiral Collingwood couldn't take it any longer. He threw up his hands, shouting "Alright, alright! Do what you want!"

The glare subsided, and Victory primly stood up and exited the office.


	136. Rule 391

**Rule 391. Iowa it was not funny replacing Nagato's standard shell loadout with nuclear shells/Rule 392. When firing a nuclear shell it is not appropriate to yell 'PRAISE THE SUN!'**

"So, what the fuck's in the boxes?" Iowa said, giving one of the wooden crates a hard kick. Or she would have, had Missouri not stopped it with her own foot.

"Those," the battleship bit out. "Are W23 nuclear shells. Be careful with them!"

"No shit..." Iowa whistled, finally noting the radiological symbol on each of them. "What's the yield on these fuckers?"

"15-20 kilotons," Wisconsin answered from where she was inspecting one. "So, needless to say, be very careful."

"Jesus fuck, you guys, I can be careful." Iowa promptly wilted under the skeptical stares of all three of her sisters. "Alright, alright, I'll treat 'em like they're made of spun glass!"

"How do they look, Wiscy?" New Jersey asked, ignoring Iowa.

"Looks good to me," the other battleship responded. "And there's enough here to equip every 16"-armed battleship we have with a normal loadout. We're not gonna run out anytime soon."

Nobody noticed a sadistic grin spreading across Iowa's face. "That many, huh?" she mused, shark-like. She made a mental note to bribe one of the submarines to... liberate a crate for her as soon as possible.

~o~

One of the perks of Nagato's Kai Ni upgrade was the ability to, in a pinch, use allied 16" shells, most commonly American HC rounds. And on this mission, with at least one Installation-type Abyssal to destroy, she was loading up on HE. Let the other ships take on the enemy battlewagons.

Unfortunately, she found herself paired up with Iowa. Nagato made it no secret that she found the American crass and unpleasant, and Iowa in turn described her as "A fuckin' square with a sequoia up her ass". Simply put, both loathed each other, and it was only their mutual professionalism- Okay, _Nagato's_ professionalism that kept them from descending to blows the few times they'd interacted for extended periods of time.

This time, though, Nagato was pleasantly surprised to find Iowa silent, any attempt at conversation rebuffed. That suited the Japanese battleship just fine; the two American cruisers, Pensacola and Salt Lake City, as well as the destroyers Hughes, Rhind, Lamson, and Anderson were much more pleasant conversationalists, and were drawing Sakawa out of her shell, at least somewhat.

Still, chatter ceased as the battle was joined, visible in the puffs of flack in the distance. Speed increased to 21 knots, the task force surged for the Abyssal Installation. Soon it came into view, the Abyssal itself nearly invisible under layers of black hair, clothing, runway, and gun turret. It screeched at them, loosing fighters, and Iowa surged in front, her 20 5" and 72 Bofors aiming themselves skyward. Nagato herself loaded up a salvo of HC shells, and fired them at the Isolated Island Demon.

As the shells flew, time seemed to slow for some reason. A feeling of inexplicable dread fell into her stomach, and she had to fight to reload her guns. Every fiber of her being screamed "Bad thing! Bad thing!"

And then the shells hit, and she knew why.

Eight flashes of light blended into one, eight mushroom clouds merging into one colossal plume. The heat and shock incinerated the Abyssal with ease, but Nagato barely noticed, her gaze locked onto the light. The same light that had ended her life. _Burning and tearing, high-speed particles_ _ **literally ripping parts of her constituent atoms off. BESIDE HER SHE COULD SEE THE REST OF THE AMERICANS IN A SIMILAR STATE, AND SAKAWA**_ _ **, POOR THING, HUDDLED IN A FETAL POSITION IN THE WATER. AND THE LIGHT WAS STILL THERE, AND-**_

"Huh... so that's what it looks like from the outside," Nagato mused, before fainting herself.

~o~

Iowa laughed, a deep, loud laugh. The kind that originates from the belly, brings you to tears, and leaves you sore afterward. The prank had gone even better than she'd planned; the stupid Jap battleship had actually passed out standing up! And the best part was that no one could blame her! After all, the Abyssal was just radioactive cinders now.

"PRAISE THE SUN!" she yelled, grinning. Too bad she didn't have an audience.

As she saw Lexington, Oklahoma, and Mutsu tearing towards her at flank speed, Iowa found herself hastily reconsidering those last two thoughts.


	137. Rule 396

**Rule 396. Anyone who tries to gamble with Yukikaze, Hatsushimo, Shigure, etc, deserves what's coming to them.**

"Ha!" Mogami barked, slapping down the cards in her hand. "Two pair, kings high! Beat that!"

"Uh, well..." Yukikaze said hesitantly. "I've got all hearts, is that good?"

Mogami, Suzuya, and Kumano gaped at the flush staring at them, and Kumano and Suzuya breathed silent sighs of relief that they had folded earlier. Mogami, on the other hand...

"Bull! Shit!" she shouted at Yukikaze. "I refuse to accept this!"

"Now, now, sister," Mikuma cut in from where she was seated on a nearby chair, clearly barely suppressing a smug grin at the fact that she had decided not to participate. "You know the rules."

"But- But I-!"

"Hey," Suzuya cut in, smirking and not hiding it in the least. "Not our fault you wear fewer layers than we do." Indeed, the other two heavy cruisers still had their skirt and shirt, where Mogami was down to panties and shirt.

Yukikaze, naturally, hadn't lost anything.

"Ugh, fine..." Mogami grumbled, pulling her shirt over her head. Like the rest of her sisters, she didn't normally wear a bra, so her breasts were now bare.

"Alright, let's get this over with," she sighed, covering her breasts with her arm.

 **Five minutes later:  
**  
"Oh, come on!"

Suzuya was rolling on the floor, laughing, while Mikuma was doubled over trying to stifle her own giggles.

"Why'd you stay with just a king high?" Kumano wondered, mystified.

"Shut up!" Mogami cried as she slipped off her last stitch of clothing. "Yukikaze! I challenge you for one more round! All or nothing!"

"But you don't have any more clothes to bet..." Yukikaze pointed out, puzzled.

"If I win, I get all my clothes back," Mogami explained. "If I lose, then... then I'll run a streak around the base!"

The laughter instantly died as Kumano and Mikuma stared at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Are you crazy?!" the latter demanded.

"Hey, it's up to Yukikaze," Suzuya helpfully pointed out as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Whaddaya say, Yuki-chan?"

"Sure! This is fun!"

~o~

 **"Mogami Confirmed Female!"  
**  
The shipgirl in question tried to burrow under the table, her face crimson from scalp to chest. The story itself was bad enough; the accompanying picture worse.

"Told you it was a bad idea," Mikuma said primly.

"Hey, look on the bright side, Mogami," Suzuya added.

"What bright side?" came the muffled reply.

"Well, foreign shipgirls aren't going to mistake you for a boy anymore!"

From the table flip Mogami initiated a second later, she didn't agree with the sentiment.

~o~

"Hey, Iowa!"

The battleship in question turned around, seeing two of the meat shie- er, destroyers running up to her. She wracked her brains trying to remember which ones they were when they solved the problem for her.

"Cooper, you can't just walk up to Miss Iowa like that!" one of them scolded her... sister? Hard to tell sometimes, what with the large destroyer classes the US had been fond of.

"Aw, c'mon, English, it'll be fine," the other one, Cooper apparently, decided. "Besides, none of the other ships we talked to have given us a straight answer!"

"'Sup?" Iowa grunted, drawing the attention of the two destroyers back to her.

"Ah, right!" Cooper said, jerking in surprise. "You wouldn't happen to know where Enterprise is, would ya?"

Iowa frowned. What did two tin cans want with her? "Why the fu- heck d'you want to know?"

"Well, since she's super lucky and all, and Detroit suggested we invest some of our money, we wanted to talk to her about investment advice!"

"No."

The two destroyers blinked. "See?" English said, indicating the frozen battleship. "She doesn't know, either. Let's go find someone el-"

"No, you do _not_ go to Enterprise for investment advice!" Iowa cut in, not a trace of profanity available. She grabbed both destroyers, a crazed look in her eyes. "Because guess what? The IRS considers that investment fraud!"

Seeing the looks of incomprehension on the tin cans' faces, Iowa pulled out the big guns. "Look, most of the base thinks I'm crazy, right?"

"W-Well-"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well, that's fine," Iowa continued. "I _am_ kinda crazy. But you know what? I may be crazy enough to pick a fight with Musashi and everyone else, but the IRS? Noooooo thank you!"

"So..." Cooper said slowly. "Who _should_ we talk to, then?"

"Try San Francisco or Intrepid. They know what the fuck they're doing," Iowa suggested. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to go blot this fucking conversation from my brain. See ya!"


	138. Rule 397

**Rule 397. All shipgirls are advised to steer clear of the swans in Lough Swilly.**

Manchester and Belfast slowly steamed into Lough Swilly, supporting the battered form of Repulse between them. The battlecruiser had been forced to fight off a battleship attack on a convoy, but though she had driven off her opponent - yay, upgrades! - she had been thoroughly pummeled, and there had been worries that she wouldn't make it back to Scapa. Luckily, with the convoy handed off to the Channel Fleet, the two cruisers had been able to afford to detach themselves to help the battlecruiser to a secondary base set up in the fjord for exactly this purpose.

The Irish government had originally objected to the construction of said base, at least, until the Abyssals had set up a submarine base on the Isle of Man and shelled Dublin. They'd been practically falling over themselves to help after that. Said base was still there, but it was penned in by coastal submarines and MTBs, and subjected to repeated drive-by shellings by Revenge.

But back to Repulse, Belfast, and Manchester.

"Sorry about this, girls," the battlecruiser groaned as they slowly steamed their way through the inlet.

"And as we keep telling you, stop apologizing!" Manchester countered. "None of this is your fault. Besides, now I get to see Belfast's home country. I must say, it's very pretty."

"Thanks," the other light cruiser grunted. "We should steer clear of the swans, by the way."

"What? But that'll add another five minutes!" Manchester protested.

"Repulse isn't going to just keel over dead from another five minutes of waiting," Belfast reasoned. "Besides, you do not fuck with swans unless you want to get fucked up yourself. We go around."

"Agreed," Repulse added before Manchester could protest. "I'll be fine."

"Alright, alright, fine," the light cruiser snapped. "We'll go around, God."

Half an hour later, Repulse was safely in a repair bath and Belfast out on a hike somewhere. Manchester, for her part, had spotted a group of swans on the water, and decided to see if they were as vicious as Belfast said. They couldn't be, of course. Not only were they birds, they were swans for Christ's sake! You think of elegance and grace when you think of swans, not power and violence.

Suffice to say, once Manchester got close enough, she found out why crew teams - who are made up of very fit men with the approximate build of an old oak tree - cancel practice if there's a swan in the water.

"Ack! Ow! Geddoff!" Manchester demanded, impotently flailing her hands as several swans beat her over the head and chest with their wings. "I have armor! How is this actually _hurting?!_ "

There was the bang of a gun from somewhere, and the swans immediately took flight. Manchester spat out a few feathers, and turned around to see Belfast holding one of her 3-pounder saluting guns and looking about two seconds from laughing.

"Just... get it out of your system," the light cruiser sighed.

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I TOLD YOU SO! I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"


	139. Rule 400

**Rule 400. Iowa, you are to stop leaving animal heads in Musashi's bedroom.**

Wakefulness came slowly to Musashi. The first thing she noticed was that it was way too bright in her room. The second thing she noticed was a large weight lying on her pelvic region. Slowly, and under great duress she opened her eyes to see the dead, unblinking eyes of an American bison, better known as a buffalo, staring straight at her.

Sighing, she lifted up the head, noting with dismay and anger that it was still dripping blood.

"Stupid fucking Yank, can't she make sure all the blood's gone?" she grumbled. "I'm sick and tired of cleaning blood out of my sheets."

Hauling herself out of bed, she grabbed the head and put it in the heavy-duty freezer she kept for such occasions, making a note to call her taxidermist to have it stuffed and mounted.

About fifteen minutes later, the battleship was just getting out of the shower when she heard the dulcet tones of destroyers screaming. Ah, the dolphin head. Never failed to terrify the ever-loving fuck out of nosy destroyers. It's just too bad none of the other battleships were willing to use the same privacy method. That thought led her to scan the stuffed heads lining the top of her wall. Cougar, alligator, grizzly, wolf, moose. A veritable cornucopia of large American animals.

Nodding, Musashi quickly dressed herself (if you can call her usual outfit "dresssing) and swept outside, ready to face the day.

~o~

"Iowa... do you know why you're here?"

The battleship studiously ignored Admiral Holloway, who simply sighed and continued.

"We know you've been mailing animal heads to Musashi," he continued. "Including an endangered one. I have an entire alphabet's worth of agencies riding my ass to make this stop. And the Japanese are none too happy either."

Still no answer.

"You're very lucky Musashi hasn't raised a fuss about the deliveries. Hell, she _liked_ the dolphin head. Has it mounted on a plaque on her door to scare away destroyers."

"Good for her," Iowa grunted. "Fucking rugrats."

"That is not a good thing, Iowa," Holloway groaned, cradling his head in his hands. "Look. I have to ask. Are you tsundere for Musashi?"

As the battleship loomed over him, Holloway thought that maybe he had gone a bit too far.

~o~

"And that's when I crushed Hiei's lungs and collapsed her pelvis into her bladder," USS Laffey, DD-459, boasted.

"Wow..." the gathered destroyers breathed.

"That's bullshit," USS Laffey, DD-724, interjected. "For starters, _she_ killed _you_. For another, you hit her _bridge,_ not her boilers or steering gear. And third, it was San Francisco who took out her steering gear anyway, not you."

"Oh, shut up, you-"

*CRASH!*

Laffey blinked as Admiral Holloway came crashing through the roof, crushing Laffey underneath. Confusion turned to concern when she realized that backs weren't supposed to bend that way.

"You!" she barked, pointing at Pringle.

"M-Me?" the Fletcher stammered.

"Go get a doctor! Now! The rest of you, don't touch him, it'll only make it worse!"

"But what about Laffey?" another destroyer pointed out.

"Eh, she'll be fine."


	140. Rule 408

**Rule 408. Wisconsin is officially banned from making more copies of her rap album.**

"Hmm, this maneuver won't work," Vicksburg decided as she scanned through the short simulation, wincing every time a simulated destroyer was blown up.

"Maybe if they go inside?" Tuscaloosa wondered, indicating the course with her fingers.

The light cruiser frowned and opened her mouth to respond when a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She turned her head and nearly recoiled at the sight of Wisconsin in a red bucket hat, a red v-neck t-shirt that nearly went down to her belly button, saggy jeans, a gold chain necklace with her name emblazoned on it, and a pair of those pink grill shades.

Overall, she looked thoroughly hideous.

"Yo yo yo, what's up, T-Sizzle!" the battleship greeted. "'Sup, Vicksy. What's crackin', sista?"

The two cruisers - who it should be noted at this point were African-American in appearance - shared identical looks of "What the fuck!"

Wisconsin didn't seem to notice, pressing a plastic CD case into a frozen Tuscaloosa's hands. "Well, I just wanted to drop my new EP into yo hands." She turned to Vicksburg, tongue lolling out. The light cruiser, for her part, did her damndest not to look the battleship in the eye. "Droppin' beats 'n bombs, you know wazzaaaaaap."

With that, Wisconsin turned and walked away, hands thrown up in metal horns. "Fo shizzle! See you homegirls at practice."

Once Wisconsin was out of sight, Tuscaloosa snuck a peak at the CD she was holding, and nearly did another double-take. It was... well... take the most out-of-touch old grandma you can think of, and ask them to design the cover for a rap album. It was kinda like that, except twice as cringeworthy.

"Wasn't Wisconsin in Portsmouth a week ago?" Vicksburg pointed out.

"You can call Revenge while you go find more of these," Tuscaloosa decided, shifting her grip to only hold the CD by two fingers. "I'm gonna go find the incinerator."

~o~

Fifteen minutes later, Tuscaloosa sighed as she looked into the flames. She'd found a good seven more copies along the way to the incinerator, and Vicksburg had dropped by with another dozen before going back out to find more.

Speak of the devil...

"I found three more of these," Vicksburg announced as she walked in.

"Chuck them in, and remember, we don't say a word," Tuscaloosa ordered.

Vicksburg nodded grimly before tossing in the CDs. "So, I tried calling Revenge, but no dice, so I left a message on Resolution's cell." As if on cue, her phone started ringing. "Hello?"

 _"What did you do to my sister, you colonial heathens?!"_

"Hi, Royal Sovereign..." Vicksburg sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Does Resolution know you have her phone?"

 _"Don't try to change the subject! Why, I have half a mind to- Hey! Let go, you-!"_

Vicksburg settled against the wall, letting the sound of a struggle play out over the line. Tuscaloosa took that as her cue to head back into the base to find more albums.

 _"Sorry about that, Vicksburg. You know how nosy my sister can get."_

"No problem. So, I gotta ask. Have you guys been finding any-"

 _"Ah. Those things."_ There was a pregnant pause on the line before Resolution continued. _"Jesus Christ, what possessed Wisconsin to try something like this? Revenge is... well, she's not happy."_

~o~

"Listen, cupcake, ah don't expect ya ta understand," Revenge growled in barely controlled anger at Resolution. "Glam Rap, happened. Soulja Boy, happened. Rae Sremmurd, happened. _This?!_ "

Resolution glanced at the rapidly cracking CD case held up in Revenge's hand. "That..."

 _"Didn't. Happen."_

"But you're holding it in your hand," Royal Sovereign helpfully pointed out.

Revenge's grip finally shattered the case, her head turned red, and steam began coming out of her ears. **_"WISCONSIN, I WILL MURDER YOU IN YOUR SLEEP! GAAAAAAAAAAH!"_**

"Time to go," Resolution decided.

~o~

"Yeah, I figured that would happen," Vicksburg groaned. "Look, you guys are burning these things, right?"

 _"Yeah, but there's about eleventy zillion of them. It's gonna take forever to find them all."_

"And Wisconsin might decide to make more..." Vicksburg barely resisted the urge to punch something as the implications settled in. "Dammit, there's gotta be an easier way to do this."

"Hey, Vicky!" Tuscaloosa cut in from the doorway. "I just started pumping the album into Admiral Briggs' office!"

Vicksburg stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the sheer audacious cruelty of the act.

 _"Daaaaaaaaaamn..."_


	141. Rule 409

**Rule** **409\. Annoying expecting Kanmusu, one word: Don't.**

 **AN: credit to Jason M. Lee for this guest chapter.**

Lee Fitzgerald Roberts grinned to himself as he bolted down the street and ducked into an alley, ignoring the indignant yells behind him. That dirty blonde-haired bint with the red hip-piece and definitely baking a bun had been too easy of a mark. The "walking-tits" blonde accompanying her would've been a nice additional mark, but her biceps had put him off of that thought, so he had stuck to the smaller target. That little corgi wasn't much of an issue either. Although he briefly wondered about the "23" tamped on its side...

Several more turns had him finally catching his breath at a little cafe. Carefully, Lee took to examining his prize, acting as if he was preparing the wallet as a gift. He could tell from the feel that it had to be pure leather, and if those embossed designs were of any indicator, definitely custom made, not like those sold at Gunwharf Quays. Noticing the anchor and chains motif, he shrugged it off as the owner as someone who liked the sea. Behind him, he could hear a clink, someone probably putting down their cup of coffee or glass of tea.

Flipping it open, Lee mentally patted himself on the back at the credit cards and the small wad of cash. Small notes, a couple US dollars, but considering the quality of the wallet, he might be able to get a nice chunk once he found the right buyer. A glance at the ID had him freezing upon seeing the words and seal next to the picture of his mark.

 **ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES - NAVY**

He swallowed. _'Maybe she's someone low ranking...?'_

Unwillingly, he looked at the name underneath the portrait.

 **USS LANGLEY,  
CV-1**

Mouth, dry. Hands, clammy. Eyes, wide.

He's heard the stories at bars and taverns, but always brushed it off as rumors or someone who had one too many.

He had just stolen from one of those ship girls.

And one who was actually _freaking **knocked up**_.

 _'Why is it suddenly freezing? It's the middle of summ-_

The hand that clamped down onto his shoulder felt far heavier than what was normal and as Lee slowly turned his head to look, his bowels nearly relieved itself upon the sight of a very tall man that could almost pass as Leonardo Di Caprio's older brother with some differences. The ice-like aura exuding off of the giant grew colder as the taller man leaned in.

"It seems that you have found my sister-in-law's wallet that I had custom-made for her."

 _'ARE THOSE FUCKING FAIRIES?!'_

Tiny glares from dark uniforms as they appeared on his shoulders. At the man's feet, a Belgian Shepherd with a number on its side was growling at him.

"Be glad that you're returning it to me." White teeth flashed. "Her daughters might not be... as forgiving if they found out you 'gave undue stress' to their mother and new sibling. Oh, and Georgie as well."

Lee couldn't be bothered to be offended at the smirks on the MPs' faces when they came to pick him up - he was trying not to have a panic attack at the thought of being at the mercy of angry ship girls.

Once he was out, he was going to leave Portsmouth and take Cousin Lou's offer to work at her family's bakery up in Dublin.

Less chance of running into those crazy ship broads.


	142. Rule 412

**Rule 412. No, we are not going to sink the destroyer tied up at the base so that she can come back as a shipgirl.**

"Hey, what ship is that?"

Akizuki and Noshiro glanced at each other and shrugged, the light cruiser answering Teruzuki's question. "That is JDS Mirai, one of the JMSDF's upgraded Atago-class destroyers. If she's back, the Admiralty is probably planning a large-scale mission and need her command facilities."

"The railgun comes in handy, too," Akizuki added.

"Amazing..." Teruzuki breathed. "Has anyone tried to summon her as a shipgirl?"

Noshiro blinked. "Uh, no?" she answered hesitantly. "The summoning doesn't work like that. Generally speaking, if the ship's afloat, no shipgirl, unless you really provoke them on their, uh, bodies."

"I see, I see..." Teruzuki replied, staring contemplatively at the docked destroyer.

"Uh, sis?" Akizuki cut in. "Do you not want ice cream?"

That caught her attention, and she whirled around and sprinted off down the pier. "Ice cream!"

"There she goes," Noshiro chuckled as she started to follow. "I wonder if she knows she already ran past it?"

~o~

"So... let me get this straight," Iku said. "You want me to sneak under the Mirai and then torpedo her so she can sink and be summoned as a shipgirl?"

"Yup!" Teruzuki confirmed.

"What's in it for me?" the submarine countered.

Grinning, Teruzuki pulled out her phone and queued up a picture, sliding the device over to Iku, who picked it up and took one look before she started drooling. On it was a picture of Kashima taking a selfie. A very... lewd selfie. That lingerie was totally at odds with the prim teacher look she tried to exude.

"Where did you-!"

"Kashima-sensei doesn't log out of her computer when she's done with it, and she has a bad habit of leaving it in the classroom," Teruzuki answered.

Iku made note of that for future endeavours, and began flipping through the collection. Holy hell there were a lot of them.

"And you're offering me... all of these?" the submarine confirmed.

"Yup!"

Tempting. Oh so tempting. And yet, the risk to sinking an actual ship... A thought occurred to her. Specifically, a proverb she'd heard from the Americans when they'd visited.

 _A fool and his money are soon parted._

Iku looked over to Teruzuki, and most importantly at the eager, naive grin she still had on her face.

 _'Well. I've got my fool.'_

"Alright, I'll do it," Iku replied, sliding the phone back over and nearly grinning herself when Teruzuki's beatific smile became even wider. "Just send me the photos and I'll do it tonight."

"Yes, ma'am!" Teruzuki chirped, standing and throwing a salute. The destroyer turned and left, tapping away at her phone, leaving Iku just sitting there, grinning. The pictures arrived fifteen minutes later, and Iku set off to prepare.

After all, she had to get the pictures somewhere more private before she talked to the Admiral about this.


	143. Rule 416

**Rule 416. Arguments on who started World War One are now banned.**

For the third time in as many months, the Admirals of the Mediterranean forces had gathered together to adjust their plans for assaulting the Island Siege Empress parked on Malta. Joined by their flagships - Warspite, Yavuz Sultan Selim, Vittorio Veneto, and Richelieu - the Admirals had gone behind closed doors, leaving the rest of their shipgirl escorts waiting in a lounge elsewhere in Taranto base. Naturally, they were quickly bored.

And as anyone who knows anything about shipgirls will tell you, a bored shipgirl is a dangerous shipgirl.

"So, who started World War I, anyway?" Zafer, one of the Turkish destroyers, asked innocently.

Every shipgirl in the room froze, with HMAS Stuart trying to frantically redirect the destroyer's attention. Well, every shipgirl except Lorraine.

"Well, the filthy Boche, of course," she sniffed.

" _Excuse me?!_ " U-81 demanded.

"What, do the terms 'invading Belgium' and 'naval arms race' not ring any bells?" Valiant added, smirking.

"That was purely defensive and you know it!" U-81 retorted. "If those thrice-damned Russians hadn't mobilized-"

"And who was the one who gave the Austrians the blank check that provoked the Russians in the first place?" Lorraine countered.

"Well, at least they didn't seize ships already paid for with their crews ready to receive them!" Stuart threw in.

"Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?" Valiant demanded.

"Lady, I'm Australian, I'm supposed to have a bit of disdain for you Brits," Stuart retorted. "Besides, I've been working with the Turks for months now. It kinda drives home how shitty that seizure was."

"I think we're getting a little off topic..." U-81 suggested.

"Exactly," Lorraine agreed. "Now, we're all agreed it was Germany's fault?"

U-81 surged to her full height, glaring the French battleship in the eye. "You wanna go? With that shit torpedo defense system?"

"I would be happy to avenge 47 years of occupation," Lorraine retorted, standing to her feet as well. "I won't even need my 34cm guns. One shot from my secondaries, and you're done. Valiant, are you with me?"

"Of course," the British battleship replied, standing next to Lorraine.

"Well, this looks like it could be fun," Stuart grinned as she took her place next to U-81.

For a moment, the two sides glared at each other. The tension steadily ticked upward - and was promptly deflated by someone opening the door.

"H-Hello?" came the nervous greeting from the shipgirl in the door. "I, um, I'm looking for the mess?"

Valiant, Stuart, U-81, and Lorraine sized up the new arrival. Short, squat, her rigging containing a distinctive pole mast and triple turrets, she looked vaguely Croatian but was mostly German in her features. And then their eyes fell on the small guns peppering her rigging, their instincts identifying them as 70mm pieces. A rather... unique caliber.

Identical grins split the faces of the onlooking shipgirls, causing Viribus Unitas to take a nervous step back.

"This is all your fault," U-81 said. "And I'm going to enjoy this." And with that, she jumped at the ex-Austrian battleship, brandishing torpedoes in both hands. "KIIIIIIAAAAAAAHHHH!"

~o~

"On the plus side, we've finally managed to shake some forces out of the Americans," Admiral Masson said. "Wasp has definitely been earmarked, and they've promised to transfer Nevada and Oklahoma over."

The Admirals in the room all breathed simultaneous sighs of relief. Two more ships designed for long-range gunnery, and another carrier, one with more aircraft capacity than any in the Mediterranean.

"The arrival of the Americans should alleviate any disparity in-" Masson continued, only to be interrupted by an Italian shipgirl slamming the door open.

"Raimondo, what's going on?" the Italian admiral immediately asked.

"Fighting... in the break room..." she panted. "Got here... as fast... as I could..."

"Damn. And Littorio and Roma are out doing a sweep of the Otranto defenses." The Italian Admiral wracked his brains, trying to think of someone who could subdue two angry battleships.

"Yavuz. Go handle it."

"Yes sir."

As the ex-German battlecruiser left, the Turkish Admiral turned back to the projector screen, ignoring the stares of his peers. "So, how do we integrate the Americans properly?"

~o~

When Yavuz arrived at the lounge, the entire room was in complete chaos. A gaggle of Turkish, British, French, and Italian destroyers, joined by a number of submarines, were clinging to Viribus Unitas in a passable imitation of Gulliver in Lilliput. And in the center, she could see Valiant hoisting a panicking Stuart over her head and U-81 and Lorraine trading punches.

And off to the side stood Gorizia and Bolzano, filming the entire thing on their phones.

"I'll be taking those," she said, plucking the devices out of the heavy cruisers' fingers.

"Hey, what-!" Bolzano started to object, before turning white as a sheet. "R-Right, uh, just... pleasedon'tcheckmyotherpicfolders?"

Ignoring the two heavy cruisers, Yavuz stepped into the room, took a deep breath, pressed two fingers to her mouth, and blew.

Or, she would have, had Stuart not bodily slammed into her.

"Oh, hey, Yavuz," the destroyer leader casually remarked.

"Don't 'Hey Yavuz' me, young lady," the battlecruiser retorted, shoving the Australian off of her. "I know you had something to do with this, and we are going to have a long talk afterwards. Now-"

Once again, Yavuz was interrupted, this time by Valiant kicking her in the nose.

"Ow, motherfucker!" she screeched as she clutched the smushed body part. "What the hell was that for, Valiant?"

"That was for Invincible!" the battleship answered.

"Really?! You're _still_ salty about that? I wasn't even there for- Ow! Fuck!"

Yavuz staggered back another step from a right hook that slammed into her cheek.

"That was for Indefatigable!" Valiant continued, winding up a roundhouse kick. "And this is for Queen Mary!"

To Valiant's horror, Yavuz caught the blow, leaving the British battleship in a very precarious position.

"Well, if that's how you want to play," Yavuz began as she wound up a punch of her own. "This is for my sister, you British bastards!" And with that, she smashed her fist straight into Valiant's face, slamming the battleship's head into the ground hard enough to crack the concrete. Valiant tried to get up, but a stomp to the head or a dozen put paid to that idea.

Yavuz let go of the leg, letting Valiant's body slump fully onto the floor. "Anyone else?!" she shouted.

Nobody spoke up.


	144. Rule 420

**Rule 420. To all human personnel, despite what the shipgirls may try to tell you the fuel and steel they consume are STILL fuel and steel, not food. Anyone who ingests either of these is paying for their own hospital bill.**

"Aaaaaahhhh..." Graf Spee sighed contentedly as she finished taking a huge gulp of diesel fuel. While most shipgirls preferred to replenish via normal food, a solid minority found they liked the taste of oil fuels. As this gave them the best bang for their buck in refueling, and saved tremendously on food costs for hapless supply officers, no one complained. And, of course, all shipgirls liked to munch on structural steel while being repaired.

How shipgirls kept their straws from melting in the drinks of hot bunker oil, on the other hand, led to a great many sleepless nights for the men studying them.

"So," Scheer drawled as she munched on her breakfast. "Still like that hydrocarbon swill, huh?"

"Oh, shut up," Graf Spee playfully retorted. "I'd say don't knock it until you try it, but you sprayed it all over me when you did try it."

"Ugh..." Scheer shuddered at the memory. "Don't remind me. I can still taste the sulfur on my tongue." She leaned to the left, looking over her younger sister's shoulder. "You should probably go get your breakfast now. They're almost out of those American biscuits."

"Ah, shoot!" Graf Spee exclaimed, surging to her feet and making a beeline for the mess line. "Watch my stuff, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Scheer grunted, focused on her meal. And then she was focused on the most recent batch of recruits streaming in, exhausted and sweating, after their morning PT. "Poor bastards."

She turned back to her breakfast, scarfing down the absolute mountain of food. Fuel sippers they may have been, with their diesel engines, but she and her sisters carried a lot of it! So focused was she on the food that she didn't notice someone taking Graf Spee's cup of diesel fuel until he was putting it to his lips.

"Shit, wait, don't drink that!" she shouted, standing and reaching out to stop him.

Too late. The recruit upended the cup, took a big gulp - and then promptly sprayed diesel fuel all over the floor, dry heaving the whole time.

"Aw, shit..." Scheer groaned as Graf ran up to them. "Graf, get a medic here, now!"

~o~

"Well, you'll be happy to know that the recruit will live," Admiral Hartmann informed the two heavy cruisers. "We managed to get his stomach pumped before the diesel could do much damage. He's on liquids for a week, though."

"Thank God..." Scheer breathed.

Beside her, Graf Spee was looking decidedly distraught. "I-I'm sorry, Admiral," she softly apologized. "If I hadn't left my cup out-"

"Then we would have found out this problem by someone drinking hot bunker oil," Hartmann cut her off. "Considering the temperatures they heat the stuff to to drink it, I don't think I need to tell you how bad that would be."

Both cruisers winced, memories of burned, dying men intruding.

"Sorry, girls. Just be glad that hasn't happened," Hartmann continued. "Now, we're going to need to develop a plan to-"

"Admiral! You gotta see this!"

All eyes in the room turned to Hipper, who looked about two seconds from breaking into laughter. "What's going on, Hipper?"

"Read this!" the heavy cruiser ordered, pressing a small stapled booklet of papers into Hartmann's hands. That done, she finally succumbed to the laughter, laughing so hard that tears flowed from her eyes.

Hartmann scanned over the papers, which appeared to be some sort of internet article. As he read through it, a wide grin spread across his face, until he was shaking with the effort of trying to keep the laughter in.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense!" Scheer demanded. "Hand it over!"

Soon both cruisers were laughing, too, letting the article flutter down to the ground.

On it was the headline "Florida Woman Tries to Become Shipgirl, Attempts to Eat Steel Girder".


	145. Rule 424

**424\. Any shipgirl shouting "Leeroy Jenkins!" During a mission will be pulled from active duty for the next month.**

"Whaaaaaaat is that?!" Cassin Junior exclaimed, pointing at the shambling form slowly steaming across the sea nearby. It had the appearance of a pale young woman with long white hair, but the armored belts slung over her hips and the two massive human arms studded with gun turrets protruding from her back betrayed her origins.

"That," Wichita reported, thankful they'd ducked behind a small stand of coral when they heard the Abyssal coming. "Is the Destroyer Water Demon. Or, I should say, a Destroyer Water Demon. And it looks like we're in luck, because this one's missing her armor."

The destroyers - well, save for Callaghan, who'd spaced out again - shared confused glances, and luckily Nashville came to their rescue.

"Destroyer Water Demons usually come with a hat, kinda like the Wo carriers," the Brooklyn explained. "Do enough damage and it breaks off, making it much easier to kill."

"Exactly," St. Louis confirmed. "We've fought these things before. They have a mix of guns, torpedoes, and PT imps. Your best bet is to hose it down with enough gunfire to suppress the guns and smash up the PT imps."

"Which means line ahead formation with cruisers in the middle and destroyers in the van and rear," Nashville took over. "Wichita, if you could-"

"Already done. You guys should be getting my radar info now."

"Now, for this sort of fight, it is _absolutely critical_ that we stay in formation to maximize volume of fire," Nashville continued. "Stick together, and we'll get out of this in one piece, okay?"

Cassin, Irwin, Preston, Benham, Cushing, and Monssen all nodded, though Callaghan was still quiet. Wichita frowned; what was up with that destroyer?

That question was answered two seconds later.

"Alright, chums, let's do this!" Callaghan suddenly announced, pumping her fist in the air. "LEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY JENKINS!"

The other nine American shipgirls stared in open-mouthed shock as the clearly suicidal DD charged around the coral mound at flank speed and straight at the Destroyer Water Demon.

"Oh my God she just ran in," St. Louis said numbly.

"Stick to the plan!" Wichita shouted, trying to herd the destroyers into place. "We set up formation, and _then_ we attack!"

"But what about Callaghan?!" Preston demanded.

"That crazy brat will just have to survive for a while!" the heavy cruiser retorted. "I've seen the video, I will _not_ see us get TPK'ed!"

~o~

Fifteen minutes later, the battered task force steamed out of the atoll, each shipgirl sporting varying levels of damage, from the minor scratches on Cassin to Nashville's missing arm and bleeding stab wound in her gut. Most battered of all was Callaghan, who had eaten over a dozen shells and a torpedo from a PT imp. It was a miracle she was still alive, and had to be carried by Wichita due to damage to her legs.

At least the Destroyer Water Demon was dead.

"Goddammit, Callaghan," the wounded light cruiser groaned.

"Can I have some fried chicken when we get back?" the destroyer sleepily asked.

"You can have all the chicken you want while you ride the bench for the next month," Irwin groused.

"Yay..."


	146. Rule 426

**426\. Konigsberg, you are advised not to call Uganda, Tsucaloosa, or any other dark-skinned shipgirl a monkey. They might just take exception to that fact.**

"Wow..." Koln breathed as she looked into the Gorilla Kingdom exhibit of the London Zoo. "Gentle giants indeed."

"I don't like it," Karlsruhe groused. "You should go see animals out in the wild, not locked up in cages like this."

"Oh, don't be like that," Koln sighed. "You'd never see a Gorilla in the UK or back home in Germany. Just enjoy it. And also enjoy that we can actually get Konigsberg close to the big animals without her panicking. Maybe this'll get her over that fear of nature she has."

"I guess..." Karlsruhe allowed. "But I still don't like it!"

"Hey, look over there! A monkey that's not in its cage!"

Karlsruhe and Koln spun around, wide-eyed, to see Konigsberg holding out a banana - presumably from the lunches they'd brought - to someone they recognized as the British light cruiser Kenya. And she was looking mighty upset.

"Look monkey! I've got a banana for you!" Konigsberg sing-songed. "Here monkey, monkey, monkey!"

For a moment there was a tense silence before Kenya started stomping towards them.

" _WHAT THE HELL DID YOUR FRIEND JUST CALL ME?!"_ she demanded as Koln managed to slot herself in between the two light cruisers.

"P-Please, Kenya, ma'am! She didn't mean it like that!" the German shipgirl pleaded as Karlsruhe tried to usher Konigsberg away. "She was trying to be friendly, but she's... well, she's an idiot who doesn't know anything about ethnic minorities! Please don't hurt her!"

Kenya narrowed her eyes before jabbing an accusatory finger at Konigsberg. "Hmm... fine. But if I ever hear her call me a monkey again, I'm going to kill her."

"Of course, ma'am! Won't happen again, ma'am!"

Kenya turned around and started to leave, but not before shooting back one last comment. "If your friend there really wants to get up close and personal with the monkeys, go to the Meet the Monkeys exhibit."

And with that, the Fiji-class cruiser turned a corner, and both Karlsruhe and Koln could breathe a sigh of relief.

"Was nobody else freaked out that the monkey could talk?"

Oooooor, not.

Koln opened her mouth to reprimand Konigsberg, but was interrupted.

"YAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Kenya cried out as she dove down on the German shipgirls, bayoneted Lee-Enfield ready to stab a bitch.

~o~

"Don't worry, no one's mad at you," Hood reassured the light cruisers an hour later as they soaked in a hot bath to repair the beating Kenya had laid on them. "This is actually a fairly common problem. Since most shipgirls were scrapped in the sixties, at the latest, a lot of them haven't... updated their racial sensibilities. Tends to be worse the further back they were commissioned."

"That's not it, Konigsberg's just an idiot," Karlsruhe grumbled.

"Am not!"

"Yes you are!" Karlsruhe shot back. "How many times did we have to tell you not to call President Obama the 'Master Negro' before it stuck?!"

"So..." Koln said to Hood as her sisters restarted an age-old argument. "How are you handling it?"

"Constitution actually volunteered to lead classes on the subject," Hood answered. The battlecruiser let out a soft giggle at the astonished expression on Koln's face. "Yes, we were surprised, too, until the Americans reminded us that her ship self is still commissioned and that she's had black captains. Honestly, she's one of the most progressive shipgirls in the world. And the most computer-literate."

Koln found herself still unable to reconcile the gray-haired grandmotherly figure of America's eldest shipgirl with images of students with picket signs, let alone the pasty-faced nerds that managed the computer systems on base. Luckily, Konigsberg nailed her with a shampoo bottle, which drew her into the rapidly degenerating argument and took her mind off the cognitive dissonance.


	147. Rule 427

**Rule 427. When you run into computer trouble, the correct response is to call tech support, not smash it and then stab it for good measure.**

"Look, just be patient, okay?" Providence said over her earpiece. "I've got fourteen Ultralisks on the way, so calm down. And I just wanna say, you're doing a damn good job defending, thank you."

The light cruiser grinned as her army of Ultralisks spawned and began stomping towards the enemy army - at which point her computer froze.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Providence grumbled, quickly tapping the control-alt-delete buttons. The game was a lost cause, sadly, and she hoped her partner was rational enough to recognize the issue for what it was. Hopefully the control panel could identify it.

Nothing happened.

"The fuck?" she muttered to herself before tapping out the sequence again. This time something happened: the screen broke up into a mess of pixels. "What is going on here?"

Reaching over the keyboard, she pressed down the power button, letting the computer shut down, and then started it up again. She smiled as the login screen popped up, and then the desktop. She moved her mouse to click on Firefox - and then the screen went black as the whole thing shut down again.

Growling in frustration, she booted it up again only to be met with the infamous blue screen of death.

"Graaaaaaahhhh!" she shouted, drawing the attention of San Francisco, who who happened to be walking by. The heavy cruiser poked her head into the room just in time to see Providence bring her fist down on the laptop, crushing its screen into small shards of plastic. Her fist came down again and again until the whole thing was practically unrecognizable as anything other than a pile of scrap.

Finally, Providence stopped, panting, allowing San Francisco to actually get a word in edgewise. "You done?"

Evidently, she was not, as the light cruiser snagged a pen lying on her desk and viciously stabbed it into the wreckage. That done, she nodded.

"Good." With a snap of San Francisco's fingers, the wrecked computer vanished, replaced by a pristine new machine. "Next time, give me a call before you do something like this. I'll see you later."

Providence watched San Francisco leave with wide eyes and trembling hands, and spun in her seat to turn on the computer. To her utter shock, though, somehow it had not only completed the Starcraft game she had been playing, it had microed and macroed well enough to actually win. Her opponents had actually thrown a GG!

The Cleveland found herself wondering what other arcane powers San Francisco had...


	148. Rule 429

**Rule 429. Yes, we can make explosives out of fish oil. No, that does not mean you can just load some tuna in your cannons to replace the propellant.**

"Aaaaaaarrrrrr..."

Ashigara looked up from the issue of Cosmo she was reading to find her boyfriend, Captain Yonehara, slumped over with his head on his desk and his hands pulling at his hair. It was a distressingly familiar sight, one she had tried to lessen by adding lessons on frugality and logistics to the classes she taught alongside Yakumo, Kashima, and Katori.

Sadly, she had been unable to shake the common belief that supplies just magically fell from the sky. Damn American kids' books.

"What's going on this time?" she sighed.

"We're out of tuna," came the muffled reply.

"Oh, for..." Ashigara groaned. "Did Yamato set up another sushi night?"

"No..."

"Did someone else do a sushi night and forget to not invite Akagi?"

"No..."

Ashigara wracked her brain for another explanation. "Well, I've got nothing," she shrugged after about a minute.

"Yeah, I've got no idea where it went, either," Yonehara groaned before shoving the report aside. "Ugh, that's going to be a pain in the ass to figure out."

Both man and shipgirl returned to their previous duties, and soon Ashigara set aside the Cosmo magazine and started flicking through Wikipedia on her phone.

"Huh," she said after about fifteen minutes of wiki walking. "Apparently there's a process to make explosives out of fish oil."

"Yeah, thank the Norwegians for that," Yonehara absently replied. "I believe it was used for naval propellants or something like that. It's been a while since I read that article."

There was silence for a moment before both of them froze and dropped what they were holding.

"You don't think-!" Yonehara began.

"Oh, God, they did," Ashigara groaned. "But who'd be ditzy enough to try something like that?"

The two rapidly sifted through their mental rosters and came to the exact same conclusion.

"Haruna."

~o~

"Shit shit shit shit _shit!_ " Ashigara spat rapid-fire as she steamed out to sea at her full flank speed of 34 knots. Haruna hadn't been in her dorm, and questioning Kirishima and Hiei had revealed that she had already sortied.

Which, considering she had apparently loaded _tuna_ in her magazines instead of the usual propellant bags, was a very bad thing.

Finally, the heavy cruiser spotted flashes of gunfire on the horizon, as well as the rolling thunder that accompanied it. A pair of binoculars revealed a thoroughly precarious position: the quartet of destroyers and light cruiser attempting to fend off a rush of I-class destroyers and PT imps.

 _'Correction: suicide boat PT imps,'_ Ashigara mentally amended as Haruna staggered from three smashing into her and blowing up in her face. At least her secondary guns were working. Their fairy crews were earning their pay this day, putting out firepower to rival her escorts.

Overall, the situation could best be described as "Fucked six ways to Sunday", or at least, it would be if she wasn't there. As it was, the Abyssals were so distracted trying to kill the shipgirls in front of them that they didn't notice Ashigara until her salvo of eight Long Lances obliterated a trio of destroyers.

The Abyssals turned to face this new threat - and were promptly buried under a hail of medium-caliber shells from the destroyers, the light cruiser - who Ashigara could now see was Isuzu - and Haruna's secondaries.

"Hey, Ashigara, thanks for the assist!" Haruna called back. "We were in a bit of trou- OW!" The battleship flinched as a Type 3 Incendiary Shrapnel round exploded in her face. "What was that for?!"

"Bad!" Ashigara barked, following it up by slapping Haruna upside the head. "Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?" She paused, reconsidering her words. "Actually, don't answer that. Let's just pack up and get back before any other Abyssals show up."


	149. Rule 432

**Rule 432. Tatsuta, no, we cannot build you a sniper rifle scythe, stop asking.**

"A _what?!"_ Yuubari demanded.

"A scythe with a sniper rifle built into the handle," Tatsuta patiently repeated. "Oh, and it has to shapeshift."

The light cruiser sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, Tatsuta, I don't know what it is you think Akashi and I do in here-"

"Build Gundams?"

"Ah, my greatest accomplishment..." Yuubari sighed. "But, regardless, if I'm right about what you're thinking, it's not going to happen. It is beyond our capabilities."

"Gundam," Tatsuta countered.

"Totally different engineering challenge. A Gundam is merely implausible and impractical, not impossible," Yuubari shot back. "Besides, that was big enough that I could take a shortcut or two with some of the systems, unlike this idea. And even if I did manage to build it, the recoil still wouldn't be able to send you zipping around the battlefield."

"Ah well," Tatsuta sighed. "If you can't overcome the technical hurdles, I suppose that can't be helped." The light cruiser leaned in, staring Yuubari dead in the eyes. "You'd better have a different answer for Tenryuu; at least, if you want to keep all your internal organs."

"W-What are you-" Yuubari stammered before the door slammed open.

"Yuubari!" Tenryuu announced. "I need you to modify my scabbard so it can shoot my sword! Oh, and I want you to install a pistol in the handle."

"Are you serious?!" Yuubari snapped. "You couldn't even have the decency to pick one of those weapons instead of mashing two together?!"

"I'm not hearing a no..." Tenryuu pointed out.

Yuubari let out an exasperated groan, cradling her head in her hands. "I'll call South Dakota, she's better at the electromagnetic stuff we'd need for the scabbard," she finally sighed. "I refuse to do the gun-sword fusion, though. I do have some principles."

"Eh, I'll take it," Tenryuu shrugged.

"Okay, good, now could all of you get out of here alrea-"

The door promptly banged open again.

" _OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"_ Yuubari shrieked as she whirled on the newcomer, not noticing Tatsuta and Tenryuu sneak out of the room. "What do _you_ want from me?!"

"I-I was just seeing about getting some shotgun gauntlets," Kirishima stammered.

Yuubari opened her mouth to shout a "Hell no!"... but paused as she actually thought that over.

"Y'know, that might actually be feasible," she mused. "Modify your rigging by shifting some casemate armor and two 6" guns to the wrists... gonna need to design a proper canister shell, would be devastating at close ranges against unarmored targets..." Yuubari grinned and nodded. "Now, that I can do myself. Of course, considering this would involve a not-inconsiderable remodel of your rigging, I'll need you to get permission from Admiral Goto."

"Uh, okay?" Kirishima blinked. "I'll, uh, get back to you on that."

"Good!" With that, Yuubari darted towards the cabinets lining the wall, pulling out a large sheet of drafting paper and a whole array of pencils. "Akashi, get over here! I've got a project! Yes, a sane one this time!"

"Heh," Kirishima chuckled as she watched Yokosuka's resident mad scientist go to work. The technical side of things seemed to be in good hands. Now, how to convince Admiral Goto...

~o~

"Kongo?" Kirishima announced as she entered her eldest sister's room.

"Ah, Kirishima!" Kongo exclaimed, flouncing up to her sister. "What is it? Do you need some advice on your BURNING LOVE! with Washington?"

"Ah, no," Kirishima replied, nervously adjusting her glasses. "I was actually hoping you could convince Goto to authorize a refit for me."

"Mm..." Kongo hummed as she mulled it over. "That would be NEPOTISM, wouldn't it?"

"Think of it more as advice from a trusted subordinate," the younger battleship reasoned. "Besides..."

Kirishima pulled out a cardboard package and handed it over to Kongo.

"What's this?" the elder battleship asked.

"A bit of... incentive," Kirishima answered, adjusting her glasses again.

Kongo frowned at her youngest sister, but started pulling open the package. She one look inside before grinning at Kirishima with a bit of drool in the corner of her mouth.

"I'll do it!" she said. "You can count on me! In fact, I'm going to go talk to him now."

As Kongo exited her room as fast as was polite, Kirishima let a smug grin spread over her face.

 _'All according to plan.'_


	150. Rule 436

**Rule 436. To all American shipgirls: portion sizes are smaller in other countries. Don't whine about portions, and don't assume foreign girls are all anorexic when they ask for smaller meals.**

Taranto bustled with activity. Trains, coastal transports and heavy cargo aircraft were arriving around the clock, stockpiling mountains of supplies for the shipgirls and the mass of F-35 and Rafale fighters plus supporting tankers and EW aircraft that were to support them in this operation. The barracks were bustling, too; just about every shipgirl the Italians had was there, as were dozens of German U-boats and a sizable American task force.

Built around the carrier Wasp and the recently transferred battleships Oklahoma and Nevada, most of its members, particularly the destroyers, had never been outside of the United States. And they were especially excited to be sampling Italian cuisine.

Which is why all fourteen were nearly quivering in place as they waited in line at Taranto's main mess. It had been agreed that Parker, as the youngest destroyer present, had first dibs, and soon she was at the food line. Two generous portions of pasta, piled high with sauce; a basket of Italian bread; and a whole pizza were stacked onto the tray. For a moment, the Benson-class destroyer waited eagerly for more, only for the cooks to impatiently wave her on. Disappointed, she grabbed her utensils and sat down at their table.

As more and more destroyers sat down, it became clear that they all shared this sentiment.

"This is bullshit!" Mayrant complained, indicating the distressingly small pile of food in front of her. "How is this a square meal?!"

"Can't we, like, just go for seconds?" Jenkins quite sensibly pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's the principal of the thing," Mayrant grumbled. "No wonder all the girls here have such low range, they barely eat anything."

Complaints over with, the destroyers tucked in, soon demolishing their food. As expected, the Italians didn't go for seconds. Not expected was the mess starting to close down.

"Hey!" Livermore protested. "We're still hungry!"

The answer back was in unintelligible Italian, though the angry tone was universal.

"What did you say, you fucking bitch?!" Mayrant snapped, having to be held back by her sister Rhind.

"Hang on, I've got this, girls."

The destroyers gladly parted to let Brooklyn step forward, and she began talking to the cooks in rapid-fire Italian. The cooks responded, and soon there was an entire high-volume shouting match going on. A shouting match that was getting quite a bit of attention.

"Hey, what are they saying?" Savannah asked Giuseppe Garibaldi.

"90% insult, of which half is insult to mothers," Garibaldi answered in somewhat broken English. "Some reasonable argument going on in between. I do not think they realize you Americans eat so much. Why?"

"Why do we eat so much?" Savannah clarified, prompting Garibaldi to nod. "Well... I don't know the figures for the destroyers, but my range is 10,000 nautical miles at fifteen knots, and I know you guys are rather short-legged. Maybe that's it?"

Garibaldi, who had a range of 4125 nautical miles at 13 knots, could only nod in dumb awe.

"Oh, look, I think they're done."

Indeed, at the mess line Brooklyn was taking a step back, a smug grin on her face. The cooks, meanwhile, looked thoroughly disgruntled at the tin cans now swarming them.

"Well, I should probably get seconds myself," Savannah remarked.

~o~

Montcalm dubiously eyed the multiple meatloafs, drenched in gravy and accompanied by a literal mountain of mashed potatoes, a basket of biscuits with butter and jam available, and a pile of stir-fried green beans that almost outmassed the mashed potatoes.

"Eat up!" Wichita said as she dug into her own pile of food.

"Can... can I get a smaller portion?" the French light cruiser asked hesitantly. "This is... kind of a lot of food."

"Nonsense!" Portsmouth retorted. "This is a light lunch! Unless you're anorexic, you really shouldn't be eating less than this." The Cleveland eyed her French counterpart. "You... aren't anorexic, are you?"

Glaring, Montcalm silently stood from her seat and stomped off.

"... Was it something I said?"


	151. Rule 438

**Rule 438. Okay, who left Bismarck and the other Germans at the beach?!**

Hood sighed contentedly as she sat on the porch of a classic English beach house on a rare sunny day. So relaxing, and so nice to get away from gloomy Scapa every once in a while. The battlecruiser made a note to thank Repulse for organizing this, and especially for inviting Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, and Blucher to join them. She also made a note to thank Revenge and the rest of the R sisters for running security. After all, it wouldn't do to have their little vacation interrupted by an Abyssal attack.

~o~

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep," Ramillies chanted as she beat a Re-class battleship over the head with one of the Abyssal heavy cruisers.

"Dammit, Revenge, stop writing checks the rest of us have to cash!" Royal Sovereign complained as she fired her 6" guns as fast as possible at the destroyers attempting to swarm them.

"You're alla buncha wimps!" Revenge scoffed as she punted away a PT imp while simultaneously dueling another Re with her 15" guns. "This is fun! Enjoy it a bit! 'Sides, I got us some reinforcements."

Royal Oak shot a suspicious glance at her sister. "What kind of reinforcements?"

A salvo of heavy shells breaking up another cruiser squadron was the answer. The British battleships turned towards their saviors - and immediately all groaned and clapped their hands to their faces.

"Goddammit, Revenge," Royal Oak groaned.

"Allo! Zis eez Dunkerque!"

"And I'm Strasbourg!"

"And we are here to assist ze lobsters in protecting Hood's vacation!"

"No hard feelings about Mers-El-Kebir?" Resolution grunted as she kept firing.

"Non!"

"THEN STOP TALKING AND START SHOOTING!"

~o~

Yes, a nice fruit basket would do nicely.

Sadly, from the far-off rumbling there was a thunderstorm rolling in. Repulse and the others would have to come back from the beach soon.

And speak of the devil, there was the battlecruiser in question, walking up the slope to the house.

"Welcome back, Repulse. How was the water?"

"Really nice," the battlecruiser replied. "Bisko and the others were really enamored with it. Hell, they even asked to stay another hour!"

Hood froze in the act of getting up from the lounge chair she was on. "You... left three Germans. On the beach. Alone."

"Uh... yes?" Repulse answered uncertainly. "Why?"

Hood didn't answer, instead sprinting for the beach, a confused Repulse trailing behind.

"Hood, talk to me! What's going on?!"

"Remember this, Repulse!" Hood shouted over her shoulder. " _Never_ leave a German alone on the beach!"

At flank speed it didn't take long for the two battlecruisers to reach the beach, and the sight that greeted them left Repulse gaping in shock.

"Is-Is Prinz _snorting sand?!_ "

There was a loud snort from Prinz's buried head.

"Yup," Hood sighed.

Repulse's gaze skimmed over to the right, and alighted on Blucher, who had shed her swimsuit at some point and was now half-buried in the sand, crabs crawling all over her.

"Why..."

"Don't question it, if you value your sanity," Hood quickly interrupted. "Now, where's Bismarck..."

A tuft of sand wafted over the dunes, and the two battlecruiser gingerly stepped down to the beach and made their way over. As they crested the last dune, the source was revealed to be a large hole in the ground. Repulse leaned over for a better look...

*PFFFT*

Only to eat quite a bit of wet sand to the face.

"Bismarck, dear, you can stop digging," Hood called out as Repulse sputtered behind her.

The shoveling stopped, and Bismarck poked her head out. "You wanna join me?" she asked. "It's fun!"

Hood peered into the hole, noting the half-foot of seawater at the bottom. "I'll pass, thank you," she demurred. "You should probably come in now, anyway. I'm hearing thunder on the horizon."

"But Hood..."

"No buts, Bismarck," Hood admonished. "You know what electricity does to shipgirls. Remember what happened to Phoenix?"

The German battleship winced. That poor light cruiser... She really should have knocked before entering South Dakota's lab.

"Alright, I'll come with you," she reluctantly agreed. Grabbing the edge of the hole, she tried to climb out, only for the sand to crumble under her grip. She fell back with a yelp, the sand burying a good chunk of her torso. "A little help, please?"

Shaking her head in amusement, Hood reached down and attempted to haul Bismarck out of the hole. Sadly, the sand betrayed them again and Hood fell in, along with another heaping of sand.

"Great, now what?" Hood grumbled.

"We dig to China?"

Hood turned her head and glared Bismarck right in the eye. "Bismarck, dear, you're my best friend, but if you don't shut up I'm going to murder you and use the body to get out of here."

"Noted," came the squeaked reply.


	152. Rule 445

**Rule 445. Shipgirls are advised to not carry coins in their mouths.**

"Averoff, seriously, what's taking so long?!" San Giorgio shouted into the villa her fellow armored cruiser lived in.

"Give me two seconds, Jesus Christ!" the Greek shot back. San Giorgio rolled her eyes and leaned up against the railing to wait. Before long, she heard the thumping of feet on stairs before Georgos Averoff opened the door, her cheeks bulging like a chipmunk and her purse conspicuous in its absence.

San Giorgio gave her an odd look, but said nothing as they set off into town to do some window shopping. Finally, though, the Italian armored cruiser could no longer contain her curiosity.

"What in the world are you carrying in your mouth?" she asked.

"Coins," came the muffled reply. "I figured it would be cheaper to carry them in my mouth instead of spending money on a wallet."

"I can see so many problems with that idea..." San Giorgio muttered.

"FREEZE!"

The two shipgirls turned to see a woman in a black sweatshirt and ski mask pointing a gun at them. "This is a robbery!" she announced.

"Really?" San Giorgio groaned as she cracked her knuckles. "You picked the wrong girls to-"

The robber suddenly surged forward - and planted a big old kiss on Averoff's lips. San Giorgio could only watch in a combination of shock and fascination as the robber quite literally french-kissed the coins out of Averoff's mouth. The Greek shipgirl, for her part, was just as startled as San Giorgio at first, but quickly got wrapped up in the mood, enthusiastically kissing back.

The result was that by the time the robber finished and ran out the alley, neither shipgirl was in any shape to pursue. San Giorgio was still standing there, stunned, while Averoff was a gooey puddle on the ground.

"I admit, that was not one of the problems I expected..." the Italian armored cruiser said weakly after a few minutes.

~o~

"Oh, thank God the Japanese government is getting rid of coins," Tenryuu stated as she looked through the news on her tablet.

Kinu, who was sitting across from her, frowned in confusion. "What? Why?"

Before Tenryuu could answer, the door burst open to admit a panicked Inazuma and Akatsuki, who were carrying an insensate and alarmingly blue Ikazuchi between them.

"Tenryuu, you gotta help us, nanodesu!" Inazuma pleaded. "Ikazuchi tried to bite through a five-hundred-yen coin again!"

"This is why," Tenryuu sighed as she stood up to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Again.


	153. Rule 447

**Rule 447. To all British shipgirls: STOP PUTTING GRATED CHEESE ON EVERYTHING!**

"Thanks for treating us to a meal, Kongo," Repulse said gratefully.

"No problem!" the Japanese shipgirl replied in only slightly accented English. "I have more money than I know what to do with, honestly. Even my tea habits don't make much of a dent." Kongo perked up as their waiter came by, dropping off a couple of pots of green tea with the cups. "Where are your destroyers, by the way?"

"Eating in the mess," Glasgow sighed as she poured herself some tea. "You know how it is with destroyers and restaurants."

Kongo winced as she nodded. The light cruisers had once held a celebratory dinner for the destroyers at a sit-down restaurant. Once. They had signed a literal blood pact shortly thereafter to never do it again.

She was swept out of her musings as she saw all four British shipgirls - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Repulse, and Indomitable - reach into their purses for something. Her confusion was replaced by consternation and then outright shock as all four dropped sugar cubes and cream in their green tea. The Japanese battleship may have preferred black tea, but she knew the rules for green tea, and her guests had just shattered them all into tiny pieces.

But, in the interests of politeness, she swallowed her objections and let things continue.

The next dish up was some of the restaurant's specialty okonomiyaki. Kongo licked her lips and was about to dive in when she glanced over and found that her guests had pulled out a cheese grater and a block of cheese, and were busy drowning their okonomiyaki in the stuff.

"Mm, not bad," Victorious said after taking a bite. "Could use some more cheese, though."

To Kongo's mounting horror, out came the grater again. Glancing at her own okonomiyaki, she found she didn't have the appetite for it and pushed it away. Sushi was next; they couldn't mess up sushi. That phrase was like a mantra as Kongo desperately waited for the next dish to arrive.

"What's this?" Glasgow asked dubiously as the sushi was placed in front of them.

"Sushi, I think," Edinburgh replied. "Cut fish over rice."

"But... it's _raw_."

"Well, I did bring the deep fryer, so-"

"NO!"

The British shipgirls all flinched back as Kongo towered over them, her face thunderous.

"I kept quiet about the tea," she growled. "I kept quiet about the _fucking_ cheese. But I will not stand by and let you _ruin_ some perfectly good sushi by _deep-frying it!_ "

"B-But-!"

"No! Give me that!" Not waiting for an answer, Kongo reached over, plucked the fryer out of Edinburgh's hands, and slammed it against her knee, breaking it into a million pieces.

"Now," she said sweetly, smiling beatifically. "We are going to eat our meals as they are given to us. And there will be no additions besides the ones already on the table. Agreed?"

Repulse audibly gulped before answering. "Y-Yes, ma'am."

Glasgow dubiously eyed the sushi again. "But-"

She promptly yelped as Kongo clamped her hand over the cruiser's head.

"Withdrawn," she whimpered.


	154. Rule 451

**Rule 451. Tarring and feathering other personnel and vessels is hereby forbidden.** ** _It doesn't matter if it's tradition or not._**

"Ladies," Yorktown, CV-5, announced. "We have a problem."

"Yer darn right we do!" Bon Homme Richard shouted. "She got into my rum stash yesterday, had it all confiscated!"

"She stopped me from going boar hunting last week!" Valley Forge added from the back. "Didn't believe a single word when I said that I was doing the environment a favor!"

"Wait, is that why the barbecue was cancelled?" Saratoga asked.

"Eeyup."

"Down with Coral Sea!" Saratoga shouted enthusiastically. That set off a wave of agreement from the eighteen carriers in the room.

"Order!" Yorktown barked, banging her gavel down to no avail. "Order!"

" _SHUT UP YOU MORONS!"_ came the twin cries from Bunker Hill and Franklin a moment later.

That did it, the carriers quieting and sheepishly settling back into their seats.

"Thank you, you two," Yorktown said. "Alright, clearly we're all on the same page about Coral Sea being an authoritarian bitch with a sequoia stuck up her ass. We are gathered here today to figure out what to do about it."

"We need to send a message!" Independence offered. "A clear sign that we're not gonna take it!"

"What if we just asked Midway to reign her in a bit?" Princeton Junior offered, only to flinch under the unbelieving glares shot her way. "What?"

"Have you _met_ Midway?" her Independence-class namesake demanded.

"Withdrawn."

"Exactly what I was going to suggest!" Yorktown announced, ignoring the suggestion of Midway. "And, if we're going to send a forceful message, there's only one way we can do that. A way used and abused by those who founded this country!"

Identical sharklike grins spread over the faces of the carriers. "Tar and feather?" Bunker Hill stated.

"Tar and feather," both Lexingtons agreed.

"What is going on in here?"

Everyone knew that voice. They didn't even need to look in the doorway to know that it was Constitution, probably the second-worst shipgirl to find them, behind only Missouri.

"H-Hey, Constitution! W-What are you doing in San Diego?" Yorktown stammered.

"Comic Con," the frigate replied, holding up a plastic bag stuffed full of merchandise.

"And... how much did you hear?"

"Enough to know you're planning to tar and feather Coral Sea," Constitution replied, prompting an outbreak of cold sweats. "Mind if I join in?"

Yorktown's train of thought promptly derailed in spectacular fashion. "What." was all she could choke out.

"Oh, I remember all the stories I heard from the older sailors," Constitution sighed dreamily. "I've often wondered what it would be like to actually do it." Her face fell back into an angry scowl. "Plus, the bitch tried to take my gaming rig. She needs to pay for that."

"W-Well, uh... welcome on board, I guess?"

~o~

"No, no, no, pine tar, not petroleum tar. That stuff'll burn you."

"I got the turkey feathers!" Valley Forge announced. "Also, I've got quite a bit of turkey, if anyone's hungry."

"I've already got the fire going!" Bennington announced from the grill. "Just need to get the pine tar heated."

"I've never actually had smoked turkey," Constitution mused.

"Oh, then you're in for a treat, sister!" the carrier crowed. "Texas may be better at the ribs, but no one beats my smoked turkey!"

Some distance away from the preparations, Yorktown and Saratoga watched as Bennington regaled Constitution with only slightly exaggerated tales of her cooking prowess.

"This is so weird," Yorktown muttered. "I keep waiting for her to do some stereotypical old-person thing, and yet she fits right in."

"She is the only one of us to remain active past the 90s," Saratoga pointed out. "We really shouldn't have been surprised that she's as up-to-date as she is. Just be glad she didn't decide to rat us out or anything."

Yorktown recalled the tongue-lashing she'd given Thunder Child after the Halifax incident and shuddered. "Yeah... Which reminds me. How are we going to hold Coral Sea while we do this?"

"I sent Bon Homme Richard to enlist some assistance."

Yorktown gave Saratoga a sidelong look. "What kind of assistance?"

~o~

"So... let me get this straight," Iowa said. "You want me to pin Coral Sea's ass to the floor so that you guys can tar and feather her for being such a fucking uptight square."

"Yup!" the carrier responded.

"Fucking A," Iowa grinned. "I was wondering when someone would finally fucking do something about her. Count me in."

~o~

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Yorktown groaned. "You enlisted _Iowa,_ of all shipgirls?"

"Midway's too meek, Missouri's too by-the-book, New Jersey's too much of a momboat, Wisconsin is deployed, and no one else can match her horsepower," Saratoga countered. "Believe me, I'd have loved to get someone other than Iowa for the task, but she's the best we have."

"Christ, this is gonna suck," Yorktown groaned again.

~o~

Coral Sea slowly walked down one of the corridors of San Diego Naval Base, looking over a long checklist held on a clipboard in her hands. Finally, she was making some progress in restoring at least a semblance of discipline here on base. Her greatest success, at least in her opinion, was to manage to get South Dakota and Phoenix to confine their antics to their dedicated lab space. After all, their inventions were invariably too useful to shut them down entirely, and her work had resulted in 43.567% fewer explosions on base. Her next priorities were Iowa and the submarines; once those were cleaned up, that would only leave the destroyers, and even she knew that trying to fit destroyers into military discipline was a Sisyphean exercise in futility.

So engrossed was she in her checklist that she didn't notice Lexington and Saratoga, turboelectric drives nearly silent, sneaking up behind her with Iowa sitting on their arms. This state of affairs continued until the sisters pitched Iowa forward, allowing her to land and latch onto the carrier's shoulders.

Before she could speak or move, Coral Sea found herself wrapped up in a full nelson on the concrete floor.

"Get the fucking tar and feathers over here, you damn bird farms!" Iowa barked. "I don't know how long I can hold her!"

Coral Sea's eyes narrowed as she saw Hancock and Ticonderoga rush up with a large, steaming bucket between them, Princeton bringing up the rear with a canvas bag.

"I see how it is," she growled. "I should have known you were just biding your time. And yet, you've made a fatal mistake. This is all the excuse I need to- HURK!"

"Shut the fuck up, you square-ass bitch," Iowa grunted as she tightened her grip. "You're gonna do nothing of the sort."

Without warning, Iowa relaxed the hold and pushed Coral Sea to her feet, allowing the two carriers to dump their loads of tar all over her. With Coral Sea too busy sputtering to do anything else, Princeton took the opportunity to dump her load of feathers over the carrier.

"Alright. Now... walk!"

Blind and barely able to breath, Coral Sea could only shamble forward as Iowa jabbed her in the back. She walked for what felt like hours, bumping into walls and other assorted furnishings accompanied by roaring laughter from the carriers. And beneath it all, she was seething. She would pay them back, she knew it.

It was a resolve that only strengthened when she heard even more laughter, and she realized she had been led into the cafeteria. She gritted her teeth. Oh, now they would pay for it a thousandfold!

~o~

"Let me get this straight," Holloway groaned as he resisted the urge to dip into his opiate painkillers. "You, Coral Sea, decided to take it upon yourself to improve base discipline despite having no authority to do so."

Coral Sea shifted uncomfortably in her seat. That may have been due to the reprimand; more likely it was the peacock plume glued to her rear, or perhaps the residual tar and turkey feathers, or maybe the green slime she was coated in. "Admiral, I-"

"Save it," he spat, turning to the other three in the room. "And in response, you three devised a plan to tar and feather her in protest, dragging in Iowa and most of the other carriers."

Yorktown, Saratoga, and Constitution were looking no better. The frigate looked like she'd gotten an all-body tan at some point, and had a very realistic mustache glued to her face and devil horns protruding from her hairline. Yorktown and Saratoga, meanwhile, looked hungover as all hell, had gotten their hair trimmed down to a buzz cut, were covered in color powder, and were attached at the wrists by pink fuzzy handcuffs. They simply nodded.

"And then you decided to get back at them and enlisted Taffy 3 to help," Holloway continued. "Which started a prank war that has half the base in shambles and a hundred messages on my answering machine from Washington, Las Vegas, and every shipgirl base on the planet - oh, and Honolulu, too! - screaming for my head."

All three carriers looked down, shamefaced, though Constitution looked entirely unrepentant.

"Right..." he sighed. "Constitution, I'm shipping you back to Norfolk ASAP. Let Admiral Briggs handle that headache. Coral Sea, Yorktown, Saratoga, I'm assigning you three to a carrier task group together. You will be getting all the shit jobs, and you will learn to work together. _Or else_."

"Yes, sir," they chorused flatly.

"Good," Briggs sighed, nodding. "Now, allow me to introduce your instructors."

The door opened, and Coral Sea, Yorktown, and Saratoga all flinched in horror as they saw who was in the doorway.

"Hello, everyone," Enterprise grinned.

"We're going to have so much fun together!" Hornet, CV-12, chirped, a skeletal spectre hanging over her shoulder.


	155. Rule 455

**455\. To all British shipgirls: yes, it's a tradition, but can you please stop lighting the Christmas cakes on fire? You're freaking out the Japanese shipgirls.**

"Oh, hell no!" Repulse snapped. "We are not having fucking _KFC_ for the Christmas dinner!"

"It's _tradition_!" Hiei snapped back. "Hell, even _Kongo_ doesn't object!"

*CLONK!*

"You have been infected with the disease of American consumerism!" Repulse declared, brandishing her now-dented tea kettle at Hiei, who for her part was clutching a nasty goose egg forming on top of her head. "The power of tea compels you! The power of tea compels you!"

"That's for Kongo, not me!" Hiei snapped, reaching for the kettle. "Gimme that!"

Ashigara, who had been invited as the logistics representative, sighed wearily. Battleships. Why did they always have to be so damn high-strung?

"Um... I hate to interject..." she butted in. "But we don't have the budget for a catering."

"Thank you!"

Hiei's face fell, and she let go of Repulse's cheeks in favor of pacing back and forth, thinking hard. "We'll just have some of the shipgirls with licenses go out and physically get it," she decided. "It's what we did last year."

"Not unless you bring requisition forms and fill them out you're not," Ashigara countered. "Remember what happened last year when you didn't do that?"

Hiei shuddered. How was she supposed to know that those five KFC restaurants could combine into a giant robot?! And really, they hadn't requisitioned that much food. There was no need to smash up their cars like that.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Hiei grumbled.

"Well, Kongo and Yamato sent me a plan for a traditional English Christmas dinner," Ashigara replied. "Everything's in order, so I plan to just let them do their thing."

"Yes, I vote for this option," Repulse immediately volunteered. "In fact, I think I'll help with the coo-"

The British battlecruiser flinched as Ashigara suddenly loomed over her, despite the height difference, looking rather upset. "No, you will not."

"Got it," she squeaked.

~o~

The meal had gone off without a hitch. The shipgirls of Yokosuka sat at the tables, entirely sated. Several of the destroyers were tracking Santa via Norad, and many of the larger shipgirls had been dipping heavily into the eggnog and sake. And, of course, the possibility of presents weighed on everyone's minds. But they waited patiently for the crowning dish of the night: the Christmas cake.

The doors to the kitchen swung open, and Kongo and Yamato trotted out, carefully balancing an enormous cake between them. Everyone present began to salivate as the sight and smell of the baked dessert wafted through the room, and more than a few had to be restrained from diving onto it when the two battleships set it down. Yamato reached over for a carving knife, but Kongo stopped her with a hand on the wrist.

"Before we serve this cake, there's one last thing we need to do," she announced. "Indomitable, if you would."

The armored carrier nodded, grinning eagerly, and let out a piercing whistle. On cue, fifteen Avenger torpedo bombers swooped in from the halls, flying over the cake and releasing the contents of their bomb bays, which splashed over and soaked the cake.

Junyou sniffed the air. "Is that... brandy?"

The sound of a lighting match drew everyone's attention back to Kongo. The Japanese girls' eyes widened in dawning comprehension as the battleship moved her hand towards the cake. The cake currently soaked in high-proof brandy.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Too late. The match touched the cake, immediately lighting the whole thing ablaze. The Japanese shipgirls could only watch in stunned horror, even as their British guests gave a standing ovation.


	156. Rule 460

**Rule 460. Yes, there is an ice cream in Australia called Golden Gaytime. So yes, Myoko, Hobart really was just inviting you to have ice cream, and nothing more.**

"And stay out!"

Ashigara raised an eyebrow as Hobart stumbled out of Myoko's room, eyes downcast and a red handprint on her cheek.

"Hey, what's-" the heavy cruiser began, only for the Australian shipgirl to barge right past her without saying a word. "The heck?"

Well, this was a mystery. What could have possessed the quiet, reserved Myoko to slap Hobart? Usually she preferred a biting comment of some kind. Resolving to solve this mystery, Ashigara poked her head into Myoko's room. Her older sister was sitting on her bed with her back to the door, and from the body language she was pouting. Pouting! Myoko never did that!

"Uh, sis?" Ashigara said hesitantly. "Did something happen between you and Hobart?"

"The bitch had the nerve to hit on me!" Myoko spat with surprising vehemence. "Something about going out and having a "Golden Gaytime" together. I'm not sure what that is, but I want no part of it."

Ashigara frowned. Something about that was tickling her memory...

When it came to her, she had to suppress a snort of laughter. She was only partially successful, as Myoko turned a confused eye towards her. "What's so funny?"

"I-It's..." she snickered. "I-It's ice cream!"

"... What."

"Golden Gaytime is an Austraian ice cream snack!" Ashigara howled, her laughter fully breaking through. "She was asking if you wanted to have ice cream with her!"

Myoko looked quite like she'd bit into a lemon as Ashigara howled with laughter. "I suppose I had better go apologize to her," she decided once her younger sister had calmed down a bit.

"Y-Yeah, you should probably do that," Ashigara agreed as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Might I suggest chocolate and flowers?"

Myoko's brow furrowed in confusion. "But that's for couples," she pointed out.

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, y'know," Ashigara teased. "I mean, that was quite the strong reaction you had there. Are you sure you're not just-"

~o~

Captain Yonehara glanced up as Ashigara walked into his office, went back to his work, and then shot back up again as he registered what he'd seen the first time.

"... Why do you have a red handprint on your cheek?" he asked after a moment to compose himself.

"Remind me not to tease Myoko when she's already worked up," she groaned as she retrieved a plastic bag and opened up the icebox. "Also, remind me to talk to Hobart. I need to set some ground rules if she's gonna be dating my sister."

Yonehara was already entering them into his phone's reminder system. "Noted. And don't worry, I'll be done in about ten minutes and then I can kiss that better."

"Aw, you're the best," Ashigara said sweetly as she retrieved a tray of ice cubes and went to grab a plastic bag.


	157. Rule 462

**462\. The ice cream ration , supplied to the destroyers, is NOT to be messed with in any way. This means alerting them to an alternate source in case the mess hall is going to fall short. We will not be having a repeat incident of the Ice Cream Riot. Those who manage to makes the destroyers riot will be paying for medical costs and damages.**

"Oh, fuck."

Head cook Mia Hyde knew that voice. It wasn't the annoyed "Oh, fuck." of having to change the menu, nor the frustrated "Oh, fuck." of dropping something in the pots. No, this was the halfway-panicked "Oh, fuck." of running out of something important.

"What're we out of?" she called back to the line cook checking the freezer.

"Ice cream!"

She froze. That wasn't as bad as she'd thought. It was worse.

"What the fuck do you mean, _there's no ice cream?!"_ she shrieked.

"I mean-!" he shouted back. "That there is not a single _speck_ of ice cream in this entire goddamn freezer!"

Mia immediately began furiously thinking. They had no time to get more, whether by buying it from the store or by retrieving Jerry, the ice cream barge shipgirl, from Los Angeles, where she was doing a fundraiser. After all, supplying over a thousand shipgirls with daily calorie counts measured in the six digits left them very little time to do anything else. There was only one option.

"You!" she shouted, pointing straight at a hapless apprentice cook.

"M-Me?" he stammered.

"Go to Admiral Briggs, tell him we need as much ice cream as he can muster ASAP!" she shouted, pulling out a sheet of paper and scribbling something on it. "Here, this'll get you past the guards. Now hurry! I can stall serving it until dinner, but if we don't have it by then we're going to have a fucking riot on our hands!"

~o~

Lunch came and went, and there was still no ice cream being delivered. More worrying, the apprentice still hadn't come back. Had he been delayed? Collapsed under pressure? Kidnapped by Abyssals? Who knew. All that mattered to Mia was the horde of shipgirls approaching the mess.

And yes, horde was the appropriate word. Seemingly every shipgirl on base, from Louisiana and Midway to little DEs and Liberty Ships were marching straight for the mess in one massive ball. The burning torches also helped complete the image.

Cautiously, Mia opened up the window she was looking out of, and was immediately blasted by a wall of sound.

"WE WANT ICE CREAM! WE WANT ICE CREAM!"

"SCREAM IF YOU WANT ICE CREAM NOW!" the lead shipgirl bellowed into a bullhorn; Maury, from the looks of things.

If the previous chant had been a wall of sound, the scream of rage that followed was more akin to the Mosul flood. Mia hastily closed the window, drowning out the worst of the noise.

"Everyone else out?" she called out behind her.

"Everyone except you and me, boss," her assistant chef, James Ellington, called back. "Do we stay, or...?"

One of the windows shattered, admitting a thrown torch into the mess.

"We go," Mia decided.

~o~

"Campbell, talk to me," USCG Bibb ordered as she strapped on her helmet and rigging, her fairies loading up her two single 5"/51 guns. "What's the situation?"

"There was a mixup in communications between the Admiralty office and the Mess, resulting in there being no ice cream for the day's ration," the cutter reported. "This would normally not lead to such an extreme response, but Jerry has been in Los Angeles all day and it's been beastly hot."

The other five cutters in the room all winced. No wonder they were rioting.

"Numbers?" Bibb curtly asked.

"All of them," Campbell reported, not sounding the least bit happy. "Well, minus the submarines, but otherwise every shipgirl on base."

"Ha!" Alexander Hamilton barked as she ran a quick check on her crossbow. "So, even odds, huh?"

That provoked a chuckle through the room.

"Funny. Anyway, remember, with this many shipgirls we want to contain it so it burns out on its own. I want no attempts break up the main mass yourselves," Bibb continued. "Hamilton, you're on overwatch. Keep your seaplane up and reporting the mob's movements."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ingham, I want you to coordinate with the fire department to deploy the hoses at maximum effectiveness."

"Aye!"

"The rest of you-"

Bibb punctuated her statement by grabbing her riot shield and slapping the shield for her helmet down.

"We're on riot control."

~o~

"Yarr!" Kidd cried out as she brandished her torch, running between the houses. "Remember, girls: pillage, then burn!"

"Aye aye, Cap'n!" the gaggle of destroyer escorts following her shouted.

The small group rounded a corner only to find a shipgirl standing in their way, heavily armored and brandishing two 5" guns and a hefty riot shield.

"Shiver me timbers! It be a Coastie!" Kidd exclaimed. "Time to execute the secret plan!"

"Run away!" the DEs shrieked cheerfully.

Spencer immediately gave pursuit, brandishing one of her 5" guns. The chase continued until they rounded another corner, at which point Spencer found herself staring down the barrels of not only Kidd and her destroyer escorts, but also the light cruisers Helena and Juneau. The cutter took one look at the opposition and bolted the other way.

"After her!" Juneau barked. The shipgirls surged back down the same alleyway, and turned the same corner - only to eat a high-pressure water stream to the face.

"WHARRGARBLE!" Helena sputtered.

"RUN AWAY!" Kidd added.

~o~

Admiral Holloway was smiling when he woke up. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and when he went to bed the previous night there'd been no problems. And he had a feeling there wouldn't be any problems today.

Still smiling, he walked over to the window in his bedroom to look out over the naval base. His naval base. His naval base... with buildings scorched or outright gone. The smile felt more like a rictus now, and only years of habit prevented him from screwing up his daily grooming.

And then he arrived at his office to find Northampton interrogating a terrified young man in a cook's uniform. Picking up a report, he noted that there had been an ice cream riot the previous night that had had to be broken up by the Coast Guard, as well as a written note from the head chef letting the young man in his office through.

Sighing, he walked up to Northampton and tapped her on the shoulder.

"What?!" she snarled. "I'm in the middle of a delicate... operation..."

"Let's talk communication," Holloway stated in a tone that brooked no argument.


	158. Rule 465

**Rule 465. All foreign shipgirls are now banned from Disneyland.**

"Disneyland!" three-quarters of Desdiv Six shrieked in joy as they ran into the theme park. Even Hibiki, notoriously stoic and sticking back with Tenryuu and Tatsuta rather than running after her sisters, couldn't suppress a beaming smile.

Tenryuu let an indulgent smile cross her face. Ah, to be that young and carefree. She blinked, and glanced over at her sister, who had a wobbly smile on her face and was looking longingly at Splash Mountain. Tenryuu smirked; finally, a chance to get one up on her sister for once.

"Ah, go on, do your thing," Tenryuu drawled.

"Why, I don't know what you're talking about," Tatsuta retorted.

"I saw you staring at Splash Mountain like a last scoop of ice cream," Tenryuu countered. "It's fine, go and run wild. Me and Hibiki'll keep an eye on the brats."

Tenryuu reached down to ruffle the destroyer's luscious white locks, only to find nothing there. She looked down the main drag to see Hibiki with Inazuma haggling with a vendor for a funnel cake.

"Correction: I'll keep an eye on the brats," the light cruiser amended. "Seriously, I've got this. Go enjoy yourself."

Tatsuta shot one more longing look at the water ride before running off towards it, stripping off her dress to reveal a bikini top and board shorts underneath. Tenryuu blinked, then mentally shrugged. Her sister could wear whatever she liked. She had more important things to handle.

Like the creepy mutant... rabbit-thing approaching her girls, who for their part were backing away.

"Oh no you don't!" Tenryuu shouted, sprinting towards the hapless Oswald mascot. "Take this! Dynamic Entry!"

Tenryuu took a flying sideways leap, her foot connecting horizontally with the mascot's head and sending the hapless minimum-wage employee flying.

"Ha! Giiiiiit dunked on!" Tenryuu crowed. "You girls okay?"

Of all the reactions she expected, she didn't expect Akatsuki to start angrily pounding on her. "Tenryuu, you dummy! He was just trying to be friendly!"

"... What."

"It's from Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit," Hibiki offered. The destroyer frowned as Tenryuu simply looked confused. "It came out this year, try to keep up."

"I must've missed that movie," Tenryuu muttered. "Sorry, girls, I thought it was hostile." She approached the downed mascot and gave it a curious poke. Nothing happened aside from a pained groan. "I think I might have broken it."

As one, Desdiv Six gave their handler identical, adorable pouts.

"Alright, alright, I promise to not overreact to the mascots again," Tenryuu sighed.

~o~

"Get back here, you rat bastard!" Tenryuu shouted as she chased a Mickey mascot, a toy lightsaber in one hand. "I've seen your cartoons, I'm not gonna let you do that to my girls!"

"Tenryuuuuuuu!" Desdiv Six wailed in embarrassment as they ran after their momboat.

~o~

Tatsuta was practically quivering in excitement. She was about to do it! One last load!

As the patrons in front of her climbed into the plastic log, Tatsuta shouldered past the attendant closing the gate and stood on the water.

"Ma'am, you can't-!" the attendant tried to protest, only for the light cruiser to brandish the surfboard she was carrying and deliver her best "Shut up you peon before I get annoyed" smile.

"I can't what?" she asked sweetly.

"Never mind..." the minimum wage employee whimpered, scuttling back to his booth.

Tatsuta nodded, then began following the log as it went up Splash Mountain, holding onto the conveyor system. At the top, she waited for the log to float out of sight, then dropped her surfboard and began paddling through the flat section, admiring the landscape and characters along the sides. At the first drop, she hopped on her surfboard, speeding down and then through the indoor section, blowing past the musical numbers, and then finally down the last drop. Tatsuta whooped as she picked up speed, making sure to throw a V-sign for the camera.

As she coasted to a stop, only one thing was running through her mind.

"I gotta do that again."

~o~

Sometimes, Admiral Goto hated Youtube.

Actually, that was a lie. He always hated Youtube. Usually for moments like these.

At the moment, he was looking at a shaky cell phone video of Tenryuu chasing Mickey Mouse with a lightsaber. Honestly, of all the mascots, she had to pick that one.

"How bad?" he sighed.

"Not too bad, actually," Ooyodo stated with some surprise. "Both Tenryuu and Tatsuta have been banned from the park, of course, but Desdiv Six were allowed to stay, and they pretty much melted everyone's hearts. The positive responses have ended up outweighing the negatives."

Goto glanced over to the recommended videos sidebar, noting a video solely of Inazuma and Akatsuki being cute had almost twice as many views as Tenryuu's little rampage.

"Well, in that case, I see no reason to punish them any further," Goto decided.


	159. Rule 468

**468\. The corgis are not zerglings.**

"So, that completes the basic anatomy. Now, tactics for use of the MTB corgis consist of harassment or mass attack. In the former, they utilize their speed to make slashing torpedo runs. They rarely do damage, but they are a monumental distraction, leaving them open for other forces. The other use is to simply gather as many as you can and throw them at the enemy force in one huge mass. Now, even in large numbers MTB corgis are inferior to destroyers in-"

"Oh, I get it!" Undine suddenly announced. "The corgis, they're basically zerglings!"

Her sisters all brightened in understanding. "Yeah, that makes sense!" Ursula agreed.

"What... are zerglings?" Cardiff asked slowly. When she had agreed to teach a class on MTB tactics to some recent transfers from Scapa, this hadn't been the reaction she'd expecting.

"Y'know, Starcraft?" At the look of incomprehension on Cardiff's face, Ulster let out a gasp. "Okay, we gotta show you the game sometime! Anyway, zerglings are fast, cheap melee units, and they're totally adorable."

"I... they're not zerglings!" Cardiff protested.

"They kinda are," Urchin softly chimed in. "The corgis are fast, cheap melee units, and they're totally adorable."

"So, wait, would a swarm of them be a zerg rush?" Undine wondered.

"Nah, you don't really get rushes in naval warfare. Now, a zergling murderball, that would be more fitting."

"ENOUGH!" Cardiff barked, slamming her hands on the table to try and get some semblance of control back. "The corgis are not zerglings, their attacks are not zerg rushes, and we are going to finish these lessons on time, or I swear to god I'm going to have you all helping Indefatigable keep her rigging clean for the next week."

That shut them up.

~o~

"Beagle, what are you doing!"

The destroyer in question looked up, puzzled, at Apollo as she sprinted towards her. "Feeding the corgis?"

The cruiser-minelayer screeched to a halt, reached down, and plucked the cheese out of her hand. "What is this?!"

"Cheddar cheese...?"

"Yes, cheese! Something you don't feed to dogs under any circumstances!"

"Oh," Beagle said simply. "What does it do to them? I mean, it can't be that bad."

Apollo opened her mouth to respond - only for the corgi Beagle had been feeding to suddenly squat down and-

"Oh my God that is rank!" Beagle exclaimed as she rapidly backpedaled, one hand keeping her nose tightly shut.

"And now you know why we don't feed the corgis cheese," Apollo sighed. "Please tell me this was the only one you fed."

"Uh..."

*KABOOM!*

The dulcet tones of screaming shipgirls wafted through the base. Beagle looked miserable, while Apollo merely sighed and slapped her hand to her face.

"I'll go alert the minesweepers..."


	160. Rule 476

**476\. You are absolutely and completely forbidden to ask the scientists of the Otto Hahn Institute Munich for help in experiments. Seriously, these guys create molecules that react violently to being perceived and/or existing.**

"Dammit!" Phoenix shouted. South Dakota looked up from the metal stick she was working on to see the light cruiser glaring at a sheet of paper, surrounded by crumpled-up brethren.

"What's up?" she asked, putting her zappy-stick down.

"I'm trying to make a better chemical explosive," Phoenix grumbled. "But Vanguard beat me to the FOOF-Sulfur experiments, and that's about as far as you can get with fluorine. And I can't figure out how to cram enough nitrogens in a molecule to match it!"

"Have you talked to Vanguard about it?"

"Yeah, but she's sticking to fluorine stuff for now. If she has branched out into nitrogen, I haven't heard."

~o~

*KABOOM!*

"Goddammit, Vanguard!" Anson screeched as she poked her head out of one of the bathrooms. "Stop coating the toilets in... whatever you're coating it in!"

"It's called nitrogen triiodide, Anson!" Vanguard giggled as she bolted away from the pissed-off battleship. "And besides, it's harmless!"

*KABOOM!*

"Dammit, Vanguard!"

Vanguard kept giggling as Hood's outraged shouting filled the air at Scapa. Ah, such a fun chemical. Not as boom-boom as good ol' FOOF, but the applications were nearly endless!

*KABOOM!*

"Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, Vanguard!"

~o~

"So, yeah, that's the situation," South Dakota explained to Gneisenau, Yuubari, and Chapayev. "Do you know anyone who knows nitrogen chemistry we could talk to?"

Yuubari and Chapayev hummed in thought before shaking their heads.

"I've got nothing," the Japanese light cruiser shrugged.

"Same," the Russian agreed.

South Dakota sighed, turning to the German battlecruiser. "Please tell me you've got something, Gneisenau. Phoenix's hysterical laughter is starting to creep me out."

"As a matter of fact, I do," Gneisenau replied, grinning widely. "Let me tell you about the Otto Hahn Institute Munich..."

~o~

 _Three days later..._

South Dakota sighed as another explosion shook the base. Phoenix had quite graciously decamped to a nearby bomb range for her tests, but the explosions were still noticeable enough to interrupt her work.

To her surprise, there were no further explosions. Well, unless you count a scorched Phoenix throwing the door open.

"I did it!" she announced. "A better explosive! It's called, uh... well, it's a goddamn mouthful, but you can just call it CL-20. Super unstable, but mixing it with TNT stabilizes it properly."

South Dakota felt the blood drain from her face. Surely she misheard that. "Say what?" she monotoned.

"At least it's not azidoazide azide," Phoenix continued, ignoring the battleship's remark. "That shit's nuts. It literally explodes if you look at it funny. Anyway, just letting you know that I'm making progress, there should be fewer explosions, and I plan to have the exact ratio of CL-20 and TNT done by the end of the day. See ya!"

South Dakota stood there for a moment, frozen, before she ran out into the hall for Admiral Holloway's office.


	161. Rule 479

**Rule 479. Telling Royal Navy girls that U-Boats come and sink bad shipgirls is forbidden. Royal Oak refuses to sleep unless 20 destroyers are in her room.**

"- And so, Little Red Riding Hood grabbed her wicked scythe, and chopped the evil wolf's head off!" Grenville read out with a dramatic flourish. "The end!"

"That was a cool story..." a sleepy Ursa yawned. "I think I'm gonna go to sleep now..."

The rest of the destroyers were in a similar state, Ulysses outright snoring into her pillow. Smiling, Grenville stood up, closed her storybook, and tucked Ursa under her covers.

"Goodnight, everyone," she softly called out. "Don't let the U-boats bite!"

And with that, Grenville stepped out and closed the door, not noticing six pairs of eyes shoot open in wide-eyed terror.

~o~

"What's wrong with your girls?" Faulknor asked Grenville the next morning.

The destroyers in question looked mildly paranoid, their heads on a swivel as they looked for... something. And Faulknor's flotilla-mates had noticed, too.

"Hey, if you guys need something found, I'm your man! Ship. Whatever," Foxhound volunteered.

"Yeah!" Fury added enthusiastically. "And then I can punch them in the face for you!"

The U-class destroyers all glanced at each other, then leaned in conspiratorially. "We trying to see the U-boats so they don't bite us."

"U-boats?" Fury snorted. "Psh, don't worry about U-boats, they only go for bad girls." Her eyes narrowed at the U-class sisters. "You aren't bad girls, are you?"

"No!" they all hastily exclaimed.

"B-But they don't just go for bad girls!" Foxhound cut in, stammering and shaking. "I-I didn't do anything, a-and they still attacked me."

Eyes widened around the table, and before Faulknor and Grenville could do anything, each destroyer took in a deep breath of air and screamed "AAAAAAAAHHH! U-BOATS!" at the top of their lungs.

"Girls, wait, it's just a-"

"U-BOATS?!" Courageous suddenly roared. "WHERE ARE THEY?! I OWE THEM _PAYBACK_!"

"Sis, calm down!" Glorious pleaded. "There are no U-boats here!"

"WHO'S THE BAD GIRL THAT ATTRACTED THE U-BOATS, HUH?!" Courageous demanded, ignoring her sister. "WAS IT YOU?! I BET IT WAS YOU!"

"M-Me?!" Obdurate demanded, pointing to herself. "What'd I do?"

"How about leave your mines strewn all over the place?" Oribi suggested. "None of the rest of our sisters leave them lying around!"

"I said I was sorry, and you got that leg back in a few days, anyway!" Obdurate protested.

"Not the point!"

As the mess descended into chaos, Nelson found her phone ringing.

"Hello?"

 _"Nelson, thank God! I need twenty destroyers in Portsmouth guarding my room, stat!"_

"Is this about the U-boats?" the battleship groaned, wishing that Hood wasn't on vacation. "They're our allies now, we told you that."

 _"No, that's just what they want you to think! Waiting for us to drop our guards so they can use their torpedoes to penetrate-!"_

"If you'll excuse me, Royal Oak, I'm going to get some bleach and a cloth so I can _scrub out_ the mental image you just put in my brain."

 _"Wait, Nelson, don't-!"_


	162. Rule 482

**Rule 482. Stop teasing the wood and sail shipgirls. They have been authorized to deal with such happenings as they see fit.**

"Hey, Droits!"

Despite herself, the French ship-of-the-line glanced over to where the voice had come from. Sure enough, there were Chacal and Tigre, swaying drunkenly at slow speeds with deliberately stupid looks on their faces. Tigre noticed her attention first, jabbing Chacal in the ribs, and soon both were laughing and pointing at her. Droits de L'Homme tried to swallow her anger, but this time it didn't work. The fire stoked to high as she stomped off, thoughts of revenge running through her mind.

And so, too, were the words Redoutable had once told her.

 _"A ship must never give into anger. But, should your anger be too much to contain, you must make sure that your anger be three things."_

 _"Your rage must be cold."_

 _"Your rage must be reasoned."_

 _"And your rage must be legendary."_

And she had a plan that would be all three.

~o~

Six destroyers - Chacal, Tigre, Jaguar, Leopard, Lynx, and Panthere - milled about in the Bay of Biscay.

"So, what does that pile of termite food want with us this time?" Jaguar wondered out loud.

Her sisters shrugged, though Lynx was rather more... vocal.

"I got no fucking idea! And she's late! She has the gall to call us here and then be late! We're gonna need to-"

"Do what?"

Lynx whirled around to give the 74 a piece of her mind - only to freeze as she looked at who had accompanied her.

"Ladies," Droits said, indicating the destroyers. "They're all yours. I'll just be a spectator."

"Thank you, dear. We'll take good care of them," Victory said.

"Five bucks says they won't make it past Rio," Constitution bet.

"Ten pounds says they get to the Falklands before collapsing," Indefatigable countered.

"W-What's going on?" Chacal stammered.

"Oh, nothing, just a little lesson." The French destroyer flinched back as Droits leaned in, a manic grin on her face and manic gleam in her eyes. "You're gonna be circumnavigating the world, with no port stops!"

The destroyers paled.

"Y-You can't do this!" Tigre demanded.

"Yes, I can," Droits smugly replied. "Full dispensation from the Admiral. Don't worry, you're in good hands."

And with that, Droits sailed back a bit and grabbed what for all the world looked like a large barge. Why that was there, they had no idea, but it filled them with a nameless dread.

~o~

 _Two Months Later  
The Marqeusas Islands_

"Killlllllll meeeeeeee..." Panthere groaned.

"Ah, quite your whining, it could be a lot worse," Indefatigable admonished.

"It's too bad Essex isn't here. The frigate, not the carrier," Constitution hastily clarified. "This was her hunting ground, after all."

After two months at sea, all the shipgirls in the task force had undergone a number of changes. The destroyers were sunburnt to the point of leatheriness, constantly rubbing sore legs, and overall completely miserable. The sail girls had taken the opportunity to shed a few layers and enjoy the tropical sun.

And, of course, another problem was food. It wasn't salt beef and hardtack, thank god, that wasn't calorie-dense enough. Instead, the destroyers were prototyping a new calorie-rich powder that was mixed with lime juice. It nourished just fine, but also tasted like chalk.

"How could it get worse?" Jaguar griped.

As if in answer, a plume of water suddenly burst to life in front of them, falling back down to the ocean to reveal a Re-class battleship with a dour expression and her jacket hanging over her shoulders like a cape.

"Ah, Abyssal!" Leopard screeched, reaching for her rigging.

Which, she suddenly remembered, _wasn't there._

The Abyssal battleship advanced upon the frozen, shaking destroyers - and then waved to Constitution and Victory.

[Re] she deadpanned.

"Hello, Re!" Constitution replied back. "What's the latest gossip from Yokosuka?"

[Re. Re re re.]

Victory and Constitution's faces lit up, and they both squealed like schoolgirls.

"Oh my god, Ashigara got a boyfriend!"

"I never thought I'd see the day!"

"Well, we'd better get a move on," Indefatigable interrupted. "We are on a timetable."

The Abyssal nodded. [Re.]

And with that, she slumped underwater again.

The destroyers stared, stupefied, before the crack of Victory's whip prompted them to move again.

~o~

 _Six Months Later  
Brest_

"LAND!" Chacal shrieked, running down the pier and kissing the concrete. "Oh, I'll never take you for granted again!"

The four sail girls laughed as her sisters joined her. "Now, what have we learned these past months?" Droits asked.

"That sail girls are awesome and we shouldn't make fun of them," all six French destroyers chorused.

"Good! Now, run along, I'm sure you've got all sorts of foods you want to eat."

"Ice cream!" they all shrieked, running off.


	163. Rule 484

**Rule 484. Tirpitz is not the Snow Queen.**

"... And that's why Tirpitz is the Snow Queen!" Haruna finished, looking inordinately proud of herself for her... logic.

"I don't know, sis..." Kirishima hedged.

"She's called the Lonely Queen of the North! What more proof do you need?!"

"What's going on in here?"

Kirishima's eyes lit up as Kongo poked her head into the room. "Kongo, yes, exactly the shipgirl I was hoping for!" she cried out. "Come on, help me knock some sense into Haruna's head here!"

Yeah, for all her protests to the contrary, Kirishima was a Kongo-class battleship, and that meant certain... quirks.

"Haruna's gotten it into her head that Tirpitz is the Snow Queen," Hiei placidly replied.

"The signs are all there!" Haruna insisted. "She lives in an ice palace in Norway-"

"It's glass, not ice!" Kirishima countered.

"She's called the Lonely Queen of the North-"

"Which is a historical nickname, look it up!"

"She has mystical ice powers-"

 _"NO SHE DOESN'T!"_

"She kidnaps admirals to said ice palace-"

"Wait, _what?"_

Hiei's eyes widened as she processed that last bit Haruna had just said. That hadn't been in her presentation before.

"Oh, yeah, she kidnaps people," Haruna airily replied, even as Kirishima huddled up on the floor in a fetal position. "Men only. And then takes them up to her ice palace to do unspeakable things to-"

Haruna was swiftly interrupted by Kongo turning and running out the door, screaming.

" _TEI~TO~KU~!"_

"Goddammit, Haruna," Hiei groaned. "Now we've got a Category 5 Kongocane on our hands."

"Nah, I'm good."

~o~

Bismarck sighed as she leaned back in her couch, soothing music playing in her ears. Ah, this was the life.

 _"BISMARCK!"_

The battleship jumped in her seat, spinning around to see Kongo in the doorway, panting and with a crazed look in her eyes. "Kongo? What are you doing here? And how'd you get here from Japan?"

"No time to explain, Bismarck!" Kongo insisted, grabbing the larger battleship's arm and pulling. "You need to get me to your sister before she ravishes my Admiral! Her mystical defenses are too strong for me to slip through!"

Bismarck, though, had fifteen thousand tons on the Japanese shipgirl, more than compensating for the 8,000 less horsepower. "Kongo, calm down! Tirpitz isn't the Snow Queen!"

The fast battleship froze, then blinked in surprise. "She's not?"

"No! God, ever since they showed that damn Disney movie, everyone's been asking!" Bismarck growled. "And the answer won't change just because you ask a few dozen times!"

"Excuse me a moment," Kongo said flatly. Bismarck blinked, and then suddenly Kongo was five feet away, not holding her arm, and looking rather embarrassed.

"Eheheheheh, sorry, jumped to conclusions," she nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. "Are we good?"

Bismarck blinked again, before mentally filing the current happenings under "Don't think about. Ever". "Yeah, sure."

"Bye, then!"

~o~

Hiei and Haruna nearly jumped two feet into the air as Kongo stepped out from... somewhere.

"Silly me, I should've checked to see if the Admiral was still on base," she chirped. "Turns out he's still here!"

"Wha- but- how-?" Hiei stammered.

"So, is Tirpitz the Snow Queen?" Haruna asked eagerly.

Kongo merely grinned and turned to leave.

"Wait, sis, you can't just leave me hanging like this! Siiiiiissss!"


	164. Rule 490

**Rule 490. All experiments are to be cleared with the base commander.**

Admiral Collingwood let out a contented sigh as he looked out over Scapa Flow and the islands surrounding it. Most would have found the place somewhat depressing, but the British admiral found it beautiful. The green grass-covered islands, the slate-grey skies, the little cottages dotting the hills, the blazing pit of hellfire and brimstone, the-

Wait a minute.

Collingwood blinked, then pulled his teacup up for a sniff. Didn't seem like it was spiked. He looked back out over to the islands again, and rubbed his eyes. Nope, still there and still spewing burning embers into the air.

He sighed. And it had been such a nice start to the day, too.

Walking over to his desk, he pressed a button on the intercom, eliciting a beep from the machine. "Hood, could you bring Vanguard up here? We need to talk."

~o~

"Alright, Vanguard," Collingwood said with all the sternness he could muster. "I'm assuming the plume of fire is your fault. I want you to explain, in detail, what you did."

Vanguard grinned nervously, shooting the occasional glance back at Hood, who was leaning against the door frame. "Well, I wanted to run some tests with my Burning Love rounds," she started before falling to the ground and clutching Collingwood's leg. "Please, I just wanted to burn some waves! I didn't mean to burn a thousand-foot hole in the seabed!"

"What!" Hood exclaimed.

"Vanguard..." Collingwood growled. "What did you load in those shells?"

"Uh... a hundred and twelve pounds each of hydrogeb sulfide and FOOF?" She flinched back as the glares redoubled. "Okay, okay, I also threw in a red salamander tail!"

Collingwood opened his mouth to reprimand the battleship when the earth shook. All three inhabitants rushed to the windows to see what looked for all the world to be a goddamn Lord of the Rings-style _Balrog_ tearing its way out of the hole Vanguard's shells had burned into the seabed.

"And this is why you are supposed to clear experiments with me before trying them," Collingwood blandly stated. "Hood, if you could-"

"Already on it," the battlecruiser interrupted as she stowed her cell phone. "The rest of the battleships should be suiting up as we speak."

"Well, at least it can't get worse," Vanguard sighed.

Suddenly, dark figures began shooting out of the hole alongside the Balrog. Closer inspection would reveal insectoid bodies, burning eyes and mouths, and a brass staff also blazing with fire.

"Vanguard... shut up. Just... shut up," Collingwood groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Hood, if you could-"

"Already contacted the carriers," she replied. "Should Vanguard and I sortie?"

"Yes," Collingwood decided. "And Vanguard goes in front."

"Meep."


	165. Rule 492

**Rule 492. Kinugasa is currently holding a class on night battles. All shipgirls are encouraged to attend.**

"A class on night battles?" Tenryuu clarified as she looked over the pamphlet Akatsuki had pressed into her hands not two seconds prior. "Taught by... oh, good, Kinugasa, not Sendai."

"What's wrong with Sendai, nanodesu?" Inazuma wondered.

"She's, uh..." Tenryuu trailed off as she wondered how to word this... tactfully. "Y'know that thing we talked about last week?"

"What does that have to do with-" Inazuma's eyes widened in realization. "Oh. _Oh."_

"Yeah, Sendai's good at regular night battles, but she's tops in the... special kind."

"I don't get it," Ikazuchi groused.

"She'll tell you when you're older," Hibiki replied.

"Anyway, I don't see any problems with you guys going," Tenryuu continued. "Have fun, and try not to torpedo anyone."

"Yeah, that's Mogami's job!" Akatsuki said.

~o~

The four destroyers of Desdiv 6 poked their heads into the classroom Kinugasa had commandeered, looking over who had already arrived. The four Agano sisters were there, as were a good number of the base's destroyers. And sitting in the second row was a most unexpected pair.

"Aoba? Mogami? What're you two doing here?" Akatsuki wondered.

The two heavy cruisers let out a huff and replied simultaneously.

"Furutaka." "Mikuma."

Aoba and Mogami glanced at each other, before the former sighed and waved her hand at the latter. "You go first."

"I, uh, might have accidentally torpedoed Kumano. Again," Mogami replied, poking her fingers together. "Mikuma recommended I come here before I actually sink somebody."

"And she only got hit to stop that torpedo from hitting one of the oil tankers you were helping escort," Aoba smugly added.

"Oh, don't you start, Miss 'Mistook a Ne-class for Chokai again'!"

"One time!" Aoba protested, rising out of her seat.

"Uh, maybe we should sit somewhere else, nanodesu," Inazuma proposed, edging away from the bickering pair of heavy cruisers. Her sisters nodded in agreement and followed, and soon all four were seated at a quartet of desks well away from Aoba and Mogami.

A few more shipgirls streamed in as they waited, and after a few minutes Kinugasa walked in with her laptop in hand, scanning across the room.

"Ah, we've got a nice turnout today!" the heavy cruiser chirped. "A little young, but that's fine!"

She plugged in the computer and booted up the projector system, showing the title page to a slideshow. "Let's get started!"

With a click of a button, the slideshow transitioned to a new slide, this one depicting... a...

"Oh my, nanodesu," Inazuma breathed, reaching over to cover Ikazuchi's eyes.

"Bozhe moi..." Hibiki sighed, reaching for her hip flask and taking a deep swig even as she covered Akatsuki's eyes.

"Welcome to Night Battles: Pleasing your Partner!"


	166. Rule 494

**494\. Lego bricks and pieces are forbidden from being used as deterrents against allied personnel entering personal or classified areas.**

As she ate her breakfast, New Jersey wondered where the Taffy destroyers were. Usually they were up and devouring unhealthy amounts of sugary cereal by now. On the other hand, the stack of hamburger, gravy, rice, and egg in front of her was just begging to be eaten. Decisions, decisions...

"Hey, Minneapolis!" she called out. "You mind checking up on the brats?"

"Do it yourself, you adopted them!" the heavy cruiser shot back.

"I'll buy you a six-pack of that craft beer you like!"

"Done!"

Five minutes later found Minneapolis in front of Taffy 3's room, wondering how to go about this.

"Well, might as well try knocking first," she muttered. However, the pounding triggered nothing. Frowning, she tried the door handle, and was delight to find it unlocked.

"Time for the ol' wake-up call," she grinned as she opened the door, took a step, and-

Minneapolis glanced down at the mass of Legos strewn across the floor, then down to her foot, surrounded by the infernal plastic bricks. There was an odd pressure in her sole that-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Ah, there's the pain.

"ASDALDNFASLKDNFASMDNFASDKJFNASDKFNASMFGNASDMFNASDMNF!" Minneapolis ground out as she clutched her wounded foot, hopping on one leg. The small part of her not overwhelmed by the agony cursed, not for the first time, the low placement of the New Orleans class' magazines. "I'M GONNA FUCKING MURDER THOSE BRATS! JERSEY HAD BETTER HAVE FUCKING BOUGHT THEIR TOMBSTO- ASDFLASDFLAKSHDLFASJDHFL!"

Hoel, Heermann, and Johnston watched in morbid fascination as Minneapolis' pained hopping carried her to the stairs - and down them. There was a series of loud crashes and pained yelps before the sound splintering concrete filled the air.

The three destroyers glanced at each other and came to a silent agreement. "We must seal this power away," Johnston gravely intoned. "For it is too great to be used."

~o~

Hornet, CV-12, giggled as she tapped out a reply to a Reddit thread on ghosts. Some poor bastard was about to get real proof. Not that anyone would believe him.

Just after she hit the reply button, there was a knocking at her door. Shrugging, Hornet got up and opened it to find Phoenix there, towing something behind her.

"'Sup?" she asked.

"Hey, Hornet, you wouldn't happen to have any uranium, would you?" the light cruiser asked, holding up two fingers less than an inch apart. "I just need a smidgen."

Eyes narrowing, Hornet leaned a little further out the door, catching sight of what Phoenix was towing.

"... Is that a bomb casing?" she deadpanned.

"Technically, it's a device casing, but yes," Phoenix replied.

Not taking her eyes off the Little Boy clone made out of Legos sitting on a trolley, Hornet reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and dialed a number. "Hey, Admiral?" she said. "You need to rescind Phoenix's toybox privileges, immediately."

"Hey!"

~o~

The Ka-class submarine Abyssal grinned under her gas mask as she crept along one of the buildings at San Diego Naval Base. It had been child's play to sneak onto the base, and soon she would be able to sink some sleeping, unsuspecting shipgirls. Honestly, why had no one else tried this? It was so easy!

Soon she found herself under a window, and she slowly reached up and tried pulling it up. It slid easily, though not far, and the Abyssal levered herself up and opened it entirely.

A glance inside revealed three destroyer girls, lumps under their covers. Easy pickings. Slowly, the Ka-class submarine eased herself over the ledge, and put her feet down, putting her entire weight on-

She glanced down. Strewn about the floor of the room were Lego bricks. Lots of Lego bricks. And there was a pretty thick concentration under the ledge. And, ergo, under her feet.

And then the pain hit.

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!] she screamed, falling onto her butt clutching her feet. [WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE ABYSS ARE THESE?! AND WHY DO THEY HURT SO MUCH?!]

She froze as the lights clicked on, revealing three wide-eyed destroyers. Three very familiar wide-eyed destroyers.

[... Fuck.]

"GET HER!"

The Ka-class submarine immediately dove out the window as Heermann and Hoel lunged at her, rolling as she hit the concrete and making a mad dash for the docks. No wonder no one tried hitting the bases at night, if they kept weapons like those just strewn about. Ugh, could this night get any worse?

"PANTY THIEF!"

The Abyssal whirled around just in time to see Johnston lower her hands from where they were cupping her mouth, a shit-eating grin telling the hapless Abyssal that the destroyer knew exactly what she was doing with that cry.

[DAMN YOU, JOHNSTON!] the Ka-class submarine shouted, waving her fist. [I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME!]

And then it was time to run as every shipgirl in San Diego boiled out of their rooms, looking to righteously destroy whatever pervert had come near Taffy 3.


	167. Rule 500

**Rule 500. Please be reminded that eating off base is not an official expense.**

It was a slow day for the First Carrier Division. Kaga was browsing the internet, looking bored, while Akagi was on another computer, frequently looking down to the tablet in her lap to add another line or so to the sketch she was working on.

The silence held for a while longer, broken only by the clacking of the keys, before Akagi broke it.

"YOU CAN CHARGE OFF-BASE MEALS TO EXPENSE REPORTS?!"

Kaga's eyes shot over to where her half-sister was sitting, in what was for the stoic carrier a shout of astonishment.

"Yeah, really, look!" Akagi replied, pointing to her screen. Kaga stood and looked over the other carrier's shoulder, reading the lines. Her eyes widened further.

"Do you know what this means?!" Akagi demanded.

"Food. All the food we can eat," Kaga breathed. "And no hits to our wallets, or Ashigara's boyfriend bitching about supplies."

"Exactly!" Akagi exclaimed. "Oh, all the things we could eat! Ramen, sushi, _curry..._ "

Kaga smirked as Akagi's eyes began to sparkle. "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling," she drawled. "I know this lovely French restaurant about a half hour away. Roast duck, fresh bread..."

One look at Akagi's drooling mouth told Kaga that the bait was taken.

~o~

As he shuffled through the stack of expense reports on his desk, Captain Yonehara found himself pitying some of the guys at the big firms. He had to deal with relatively few of the reports, as military personnel rarely went on the sort of trips to rack up those sorts of expenses. The big firms, though... some of the stories he'd heard, like the one guy who had tried to pass off half a pound of cocaine, a baker's dozen of Bangkok strippers, a black market PPSh-41 and 100 rounds of ammo, three rubber chickens, fifteen pounds of saran wrap, and a rubber squeaky mallet as official expenses. Idiot. Creative, but an idiot. Last he heard, the Thai government was still trying to get him extradited.

Shaking his head at the tangent his mind had gone on, Yonehara turned back to the expense reports. Only one left, and then he could go and sit on the nice warm couch under a nice warm blanket with his nice warm girlfriend. He scanned it over, and his eyes widened comically. Was that- he quickly grabbed one of the old budget documents, one from before the Yukikaze windfall, and glanced at the monthly expenditures. Yup. The two figures were, if not identical, really damn close. He glanced back up at the top of the form, and nearly slapped his forehead when he saw who it was from.

"Of course..." he sighed as his eyes drifted back to the figure at the bottom. He quickly ran some mental calculations: what would be worse for his ongoing health, telling Admiral Goto that most of the month's budget had just been deep-sixed, or telling Akagi and Kaga that they were now a few billion yen in debt?

It wasn't a difficult calculation. He could be protected from two pissed-off carriers, especially with a heavy cruiser for a girlfriend. None could help him if he pissed off Admiral Goto. He quickly stamped it denied before scanning the document and sending a copy to Goto by email, marked urgent. That done, he quickly cleaned up his office and left.

After all, he still had a nice warm girlfriend to go snuggle.

After all, he had a nice evening with Ashigara watching cheesy romcoms planned.


	168. Rule 504

**Rule 504. While effective when outmatched by an opponent, "death of a thousand cuts" usually involves a multitude of smaller wounds dealt to an enemy. Using experimental weapons in calibers you should not be mounting to utterly obliterate a target in one salvo, on the other hand, is usually classified as massive overkill.**

Scharnhorst oohed and ahed at the array of weaponry and other equipment, experimental or otherwise, lining the shelves in Gneisenau's lab. A powered exoskeleton, a chainsword, a 600mm mortar. Finally, Scharnhorst's eyes landed on a gun. A very large gun, one that took up most of a twelve-foot shelf.

"Hey, what's that?" she asked, pointing to the gun as Gneisenau walked out of one of the side rooms, wiping grease off her palms.

"That," Gneisenau replied proudly. "Is an 800mm Schwerer Gustav howitzer. It fires 7100 kg armor-piercing shells, and can penetrate over seven meters of concrete."

"Wow..." Scharnhorst breathed, stars in her eyes as she reached for the gunmetal grey barrel...

"Ow!" she yelped as her sister slapped her hand away.

"Bad!" she admonished. "I know that look in your eye, sis, and I'm not letting you strap this thing to your rigging. Any other problems aside, the recoil would knock you ass over teakettle."

Scharnhorst opened her mouth to argue back, only for alarm klaxons to start ringing.

"Fuck!" Gneisenau growled. "You've got your rigging ready?"

"Yup!"

"I need to grab mine, so I'll meet you on the water," Gneisenau replied before rushing out the door.

This left Scharnhorst in the workshop, looking longingly at the massive cannon on the wall. She sighed, walking to the door - only to pause.

"I~de~a!" she sang, before skipping back up to the gun. "Oh, you and me are gonna have fun times together!"

~o~

Whether by chance or design, the Abyssals had chosen the perfect moment to attack Wilhelmshaven. Bismarck and Eugen were deployed into the Atlantic, covering a convoy, and Tirpitz had been recalled from Trondheim for a refit. Add in Graf Spee being in transit to the Indian Ocean, Lutzow already there, and Graf Zeppelin undergoing training in Norfolk, and over half of the German Navy's heavy shipgirls were deployed elsewhere.

And to top it all off, Scharnhorst was late.

"I am going to fucking _kill_ Scharnhorst when she gets here!" Gneisenau growled as she grabbed a heavy cruiser from behind. With a burst of strength, she tore open the Abyssal's torso, before tossing the two halves into the ocean.

"Save it for after we're done here!" Scheer shot back as she shot four of her torpedoes into the soft underbelly of a Ru-class battleship she was clinging to the back of. "We need her firepower if we're gonna survive this, let alone win!"

Panzerschiffe and battleship paused as they took stock of the situation. Destroyers out of torpedoes, light cruisers not far behind on 150mm shells, and Blucher, Hipper, and the two of them battered and bleeding. The one bright spot were the Swordfish squadrons that periodically dropped by, usually leaving a heavy Abyssal shattered and bleeding in their wake. Soon, it would be back into the fray.

"Hey, everyone, sorry I'm late!"

Scheer and Gneisenau both breathed identical sighs of relief, the latter turning to her sister. "About fucking time, sis. Now pick a target, and-"

Gneisenau paused in her orders, taking in the wrapped... thing carried on her sister's shoulder. It was huge, almost twelve feet long, and Gneisenau had a sneaking suspicion she knew what it was.

"Scharnhorst, forward!" the battleship chirped, unwrapping the chords holding the canvas in place. The cloth fell off to reveal the Gustav cannon, hastily modified to be carried like a MANPAD.

"Gneisenau, what-"

"Ssh," the battleship said, placing a finger on Scheer's lips. "Just sit back and watch."

Naturally, another Ru-class battleship took the opportunity to fling off the four destroyers clinging to her arms and charge at them. Scharnhorst grinned and leveled the cannon at the oncoming Abyssal.

"FIRING!"

There was an almighty bang, like God himself had bitchslapped the air for being an idiot. A massive cloud of smoke and flame enveloped Scharnhorst, and the shell punched _through_ the Abyssal battleship, leaving her torso and hips connected by a mere two scraps of flesh at the sides. It slammed into the sea behind the monster before exploding and throwing a massive plume of water into the air.

"Wow..." Scheer whistled as the Ru slumped forward and into the waves.

"Yeah, it says seven meters of concrete, but that's kinda hard to visualize," Gneisenau agreed. "Huh. Where's Scharnhorst?"

The plume dissipated to reveal no battleship - at least, until she popped up out of the water, her face a bloody ruin and part of the barrel dented.

"M'okay!" she mumbled through shattered teeth.

"The recoil smashed the gun into your face, didn't it?" Gneisenau deadpanned.

"Yes..."

A trio of shells crashed into Gneisenau's belt, causing her to wince and serving as a reminder that there was still a battle to finish.

"Right, forget that, it's time to fight!" Gneisenau barked, leveling her 11" guns at the offending heavy cruiser. "You'll just have to suck it up until we get back."

*BOOM!*

"And save that thing for battleships, not destroyers!"


	169. Rule 507

**Rule 507. Giving Willie D. a shirt of the Sisterhood of Fletcher Destroyers to demonstrate that she is one of them and they do like her was a nice idea. It just shouldn't have been the "Fletcher Torpedo Delivery Service - When it absolutely, positively needs to be sunk!" one. Iowa saw her wearing it and had a panic attack.**

William D. Porter sighed despondently as she looked out over the ocean. Not for the first time, she contemplated whether anyone would notice if she just... left. And also not for the first time, her brain countered with a list of names.

Samuel B. Roberts. Yukikaze. Laffey II. Hornet II. Bunker Hill and Franklin. All, she knew, would tear apart heaven and earth to find her.

And yet, none of her sisters were on that list. Even Laffey, bless her, was of the Allen M. Sumner class, and it just wasn't the same.

Sighing again, she pulled herself to her feet. Well, that was enough of being depressed for the week. Back to work shooting down Abyssal planes. If there was anything she was good at, it was AA work.

Ah, the look on Yukikaze's face when she first saw her open up with her full AA battery...

"Yo, Willie!"

Willie D. blinked, glancing up the pier to see Nicholas and three other destroyers she, to her distress, did not recognize besides their Fletcher-ness. "Nicholas?"

"Hey!" the other Fletcher greeted. "Glad we found you. This is Chevalier, Strong, and De Haven."

"Pleased t'meetcha," Chevalier greeted.

"Likewise," Strong added.

"Good to see you, Willie!" De Haven enthusiastically said, pumping the other destroyer's arm. "I'll be counting on you to keep those damn planes off our backs!"

"G-Good to see all of you," Willie stammered. "But, uh... what do you want with me?"

"Well, for starters, we need to do something that's been long overdue," Nicholas stated before snapping her fingers. "Girls!"

Strong and De Haven promptly grabbed Willie by the arms. Before she could protest, Chevalier shoved a haze grey t-shirt over her head.

Willie blinked, glancing down at the slogan printed on the front: "Fletcher Torpedo Delivery Service - When it absolutely, positively needs to be sunk!", it said.

"Welcome to the Sisterhood of Fletcher Destroyers, William D. Porter," Nicholas said with a warm smile.

For a moment, Willie was silent, before her face scrunched up and tears began flowing from her eyes.

"Whoa, shit, Willie, are you okay?!" Nicholas panicked.

Somehow, the destroyer managed to shakily nod. "I-I'm just so happy!" she sobbed. "N-No one's ever done this for me! I... I need to..."

"Well..." Nicholas hedged. "I wanted to go over your new unit assignment, but I think that can wait until tomorrow morning. Go do what you need to do, okay?"

Willie nodded, rubbing her eyes, and began jogging towards the base.

"You think this'll work?" Strong asked after a few moments.

"Yeah. I think it will," Nicholas answered without a moment of hesitation.

~o~

Three days later saw Willie D. laughing and chatting with De Haven, both of them wearing their t-shirts as the two walked towards the AA firing range.

"... and that's when that big red-and-black portal opened up and the shells passed _through_ me!" Willie finished, gesticulating wildly. "It was so cool! I kinda wish it wasn't cordoned off, I'd love to go visit again."

"Yeah, sounds like an absolute hoot to visit," De Haven laughed. "Oh, hey, there's Iowa. Hey, Iowa!"

For some odd reason, the battleship was staring straight at them - or rather, straight at Willie D.

"What's her problem?" De Haven wondered.

"She's always been skittish around me, probably worried about friendly fire," Willie D. answered. Talking with Mogami about that had done wonders for her guilt over that incident. "She usually doesn't do this, though."

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

The two destroyers blinked as the battleship tore an Iowa-shaped hole in the wall.

"She doesn't usually do that, either."

~o~

"Have we found Iowa yet?" Admiral Holloway sighed. Of all things, a goddamn t-shirt...

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant in charge of the search said, pointing at the projected map. "She's here, where the Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian borders intersect. The Chinese are not happy about the trespassing." A wide grin worked its way onto the lieutenant's face. "Of course, unlike the North Koreans, they didn't try to actually stop her."

Admiral Holloway didn't share the younger officer's mirth. After all, he was the one who had to deal with the Chubby Leader's histrionics.

"And how are we getting her back?"

"Well, sir, we've forward-deployed Nicholas' squadron, and the Russians have sent a cruiser or two to try and retrieve her. Plan B is to have Hoppo-chan pick her up and carry her out."

"So this is what we've been reduced to..." Holloway muttered. "Okay, give the Russians the go-ahead and keep Hoppo on standby."


	170. Rule 509

**509\. Please remember that DesDiv6 consists of 4 cute moe-blobs, not 5. Seriously, it's the fifth time Hoppo's sortied with them (that we know of).**

"Alright, girls, tell me what the rules are."

Nagato paused, glancing out a nearby window to see Tenryuu standing on the water, Desdiv 6 and Hoppo-chan being their usual adorable selves.

Wait a minute.

"Don't go looking for trouble," Akatsuki dutifully recited.

"If trouble finds us, let Big Sis Tenryuu handle it," Ikazuchi continued.

"Supplies are for the base, not for mission snacks," Hibiki said in her usual monotone.

"The Americans are not out to eat us," Inazuma said, only a slight tremor in her voice.

[Don't poop in the ocean,] Hoppo finished.

The small part of Nagato's mind not overwhelmed by the sheer cuteness on display wondered what Hoppo-chan was doing with Desdiv 6. Most of her brainpower, though, was busy trying to keep her motor functions from having her dive out the window and attempt to tackle-glomp one of the little destroyers.

Getting stabbed in the kidneys hurt, after all.

"Alright, good job, ya little brats!" Tenryuu barked, pointing her sword out to sea. "Let's go!"

"Yaaaaay!" the destroyers and Hoppo shrieked, streaming off behind Tenryuu like so many ducklings. It was too much for the battleship, and the resulting gusher of blood slammed her into the wall, letting her slump to the ground, unconscious.

~o~

Tenryuu stared at the massive plume of water left behind by Hoppo's airstrike. Water that was, if you looked closely, streaked with red. Luckily, none of her usual charges were looking, busy gathering materials.

"Uh, good job, Hoppo-chan," Tenryuu said hesitantly, unconsciously reaching down to ruffle the Abyssal's hair. "But next time, try to make sure that's actually a submarine and not a whale. Admiral Goto gets enough letters from the environmentalist nutjobs as it is."

Hoppo nodded, going back to scanning the horizon for threats. And soon she spotted some.

"Looks like... four destroyers," Tenryuu decided as her radar scanned the contact. "Stay here and make sure nobody sneaks up on the girls, okay? I got this."

Drawing her sword, Tenryuu began to build up steam as she charged for the destroyers. An appetizer, but this would still be fun.

~o~

Nagato groaned, rubbing the back of her head. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was walking down the corridor she was in, then nothing. Well, whatever happened, she'd been out for a while, judging from the orange tones of sunset leaking in through the window.

The battleship hauled herself to her feet and up to the window, hoping to glean some clues. Instead, she found a blood-soaked Tenryuu and Desdiv 6 returning from their expedition. All four destroyers looked sleepy, Akatsuki letting out an adorable yawn just as Nagato spotted Hoppo sleeping soundly in Tenryuu's arms.

This spurt of blood wasn't enough to send her flying, but combined with previous bloodloss it conspired to send Nagato tumbling out the open window.

The last thing she saw before she completely passed out was Inazuma running towards her, looking frantic.

"So... adorable..." she managed to mutter before blackness overtook her.


	171. Rule 513

**AN: Another omake chapter from Shaithan! Remember, omake chapters take place in alternate continuities from the main chapters.**

 **Rule 513. We are aware that some shipgirls hold captain's or even admiral's rank. You can't simply ask them for an okay for things you need a CO's approval. Especially for things on this list!**

Admiral Holloway watched proudly as several shipgirls celebrated their graduation from the Shipgirl Officer Training Program, a measure taken to givesShipgirls more independence in the field and to reduce the amount of little Neidermeyers who thought they could order any odd girl around just because they carried a rank and the girls did not.

Of course, the results varied wildly. Johnston and Sammy B. had been among the many dropouts, though their dropping out was quite memorable. Better not dwell on that, though, those two troublemakers tended to when someone thought about their escapades. On the other hand, Iowa had passed with flying colors, becoming a full admiral; Enterprise had intimidated the testers and torn them a new one for suggesting stupid tactics, also attaining the rank of full admiral; Willie D. had against all odds and expectations managed to become a Captain; Nicholas had given a convincing showing, acquiring the rank of Rear Admiral (Lower Half); Harder and Albacore had become Captains while Sea Tiger had gotten a recommendation to join the logistics division as a Lieutenant Commander. And the procession continued. Shipgirl after shipgirl got their ranks pinned to their chests, before joining their compatriots at the back of the stage.

Of course, there had also been the foreigners. As the course had been designed by all major and several minor navies working together, all participating navies had agreed to send the girls they thought could profit from this endeavor and become officers of their own.

Holloway watched fondly as the first foreign candidate stepped forward. Hood stood there proudly, every inch the pinnacle of battlecruisers. She beamed as her name was called and she walked up to receive her admiral's pennant. Admiral Hood had a nice ring to it, Holloway mused. Next to him, Cunningham was silently bursting with pride.

Warspite became a Rear Admiral, accepting the pennant with quiet grace and a small grin that made some women and men in attendance swoon. Next up was the ever un-lucky Thetis, who was set to become a Commander, followed by Ark Royal, now a Commodore. Courageous, Renown, Prince of Wales and Vampire became Captains, pride evident in their stances and their grins.

Next up were the French, who had sent Richelieu, Jean Bart and Surcouf, which would from now on be Vice Admiral, Commander and, surprisingly, Rear Admiral, respectively. Tashkent and Aurora came next, a Captain and a Rear Admiral from now on. Though the Russians would need to watch Aurora, she still wanted to start a communist revolution and do it right this time.

Italy had sent Vittorio Veneto, Roma, Littorio and Zara, who had come in wanting to be Captains and had reached that goal.

The Japanese had sent some girls, too, mostly as a test bed for eventually granting their girls ranks themselves. Houshou was the first one, the light carrier coming up on stage and gracefully accepting her admiral's pennant. Hopefully Kongou wouldn't get confused by this. Ooyodo and Katori became Rear Admirals (Lower Half). Tenryuu, of all girls, had acquired the same rank, unlike her sister Tatsuta who had only managed to become a Lieutenant Commander. Holloway's heart melted when Tenryuu was buried under her kindergarten of adorableness, the five - agh, four, dammit! - _four_ moeblobs of DesDiv6.

It was in a slight daze for pretty much everyone that the next promotions got handed out. DesDiv6 now had Akatsuki as a Lieutenant Commander, Hibiki as a Captain, Inazuma as a Commander, Ikazuchi as a Lieutenant Commander and Hoppo as a Vice Admiral.

When the adorableness left, the last two Japanese representatives came on stage. It was a difference like night and day. On the one hand, Kaga, stoic, professional, and aloof, with rather conservative clothing. On the other hand, Musashi. Outgoing, friendly, professional, caring and almost spilling out of her bandage top. The contrasts could hardly be sharper. Still, both girls had tested very well, Kaga becoming a Vice Admiral and Musashi even reaching the rank of Admiral. All in all, it had been a success for the Japanese and Admirals Takeda and Goto were already conversing about who would come next.

Finally, the Germans were up. Unlike the other navies, they had sent a lot of U-Boats, as that was what they had in abundance. U-47, U-29 and U-96 would from now on be Lieutenants, or as they preferred it, Kaleuns, U-81 was a freshly minted Lieutenant Commander, U-2501 would be a Commander, U-490, U-3008 and U-505 were freshly minted Captains, Graf Zeppelin would be a Commander, same as Prinz Eugen, Blücher and Admiral Hipper. The final girls to receive their ranks were Bismarck and Tirpitz. Once again it became evident just how different both sisters were. Bismarck had worked hard and earned her title as Admiral full well. Tirpitz on the other hand had in the eyes of many a tester a lot of untapped reserves, which ended with her merely being a Rear Admiral (Lower Half). It was even evident in their stances. Bismarck was proud of her achievement, Tirpitz seemed to want to be elsewhere.

With that, the ceremony was over, several hours worth of standing around coming to an end.

The newly minted officers mingled with human officers as well as other shipgirls. Soon those girls would get to know the joys of paperwork and destroyer-wrangling.

It hadn't even been 20 minutes when the first girls came to the newly minted officers and asked for things. Leave on specific days, patrol schedules, complaints about the food, complaints about human personnel, requisition forms for everything from food to electronics to highly dangerous chemicals, rooming arrangements, holiday plans and a host of other things. Holloway watched it with pride, especially as Hood and Iowa handled things quickly and professionally while Bismarck soundly informed several SCIENCE! girls that their requests for unstable chemicals were denied until the end of forever.

Holloway wanted to turn back to the buffet when he heard Tirpitz' raspy voice. "There you are, girls!" she said happily.

"Yes, chieftain," one of the Viking girls that had come to the ceremony said.

"Is everything prepared?" Tirpitz asked, lighting up a cigarette.

"Yes, chieftain. It shall be glorious, just like the olden days!" the longship answered.

"Well then. Wait for me, I'll join you in an hour or two. Then we return to Oslo and commence Operation: Danegeld!" Tirpitz said, her smile distinctly sharklike.

Something tugged at Holloway's memory, but he didn't pay much attention to it. There was food to be had, the Aircraft Carriers and Battleships were distracted-

Holloway's thoughts ground to a halt. The U-Boats and Submarines were currently absconding with all food! "Stop that!" he shouted, prompting the retreat to speed up and several hungry girls to take notice.

The ensuing brawl completely consumed his thoughts . Together with several girls he began working on restoring order. Whatever had bugged him before could surely wait.

~o~

 _Several days later_

Holloway put on the news and did a spit-take. A grinning King of England surrounded by a defeated and tied up Royal Guard detachment and a veritable army of Viking shipgirls was on the main news. The headlines were even worse. "King of England defeated. Once again a Danegeld was paid!" stood there in bold letters.

Holloway put his head into his hands. "I knew I was forgetting something," he groaned before looking up. "Wait. Tirpitz was in on this? I'd better call Hartmann about that." Tirpitz would need to face repercussions for this stunt.

Unseen and unheard by him, the news continued. "This operation was protected by 10 U-Boats and the Battleship Tirpitz, and was conducted with the full consent of the King himself, who wanted to face an army of Vikings just like the kings of old. Even though a lot of it was scripted, it was still a very memorable occasion, with Vikings crossing the North Sea without anything other than their navigational knowledge and tools, as well as sailing up the Thames and fighting several historical shipgirls as well as the Royal Guard before the Houses of Parliament. Footage of the fight has reached triple-digit millions of views and was met with cheers around the world, particularly in Denmark itself."


	172. Rule 514

**Rule 514. The Gladiator Games are to stop immediately.**

"Son of a- this is the last time I take search engine recommendations," Admiral Holloway grumbled as Bing dutifully autocorrected and autosearched the term he'd been typing in. Despite his grumbling, though, something caught his eye.

"Twitch TV, huh?" he muttered to himself. "That sounds vaguely familiar, I think my son was active on here when he was a teenager."

Standing up slightly, Holloway glanced around his office, making sure no one was in, before clicking on the link.

"Eh, no one'll mind if I take a quick break."

The webpage quickly loaded, and Holloway froze. Dead center in the screen was a video feed depicting some very familiar faces, with a very familiar voice dubbing over it.

 _"Welcome back, everybody! I'm your host and announcer, Naka-chan, and we welcome you back to the Coliseum!"_

With a start, Holloway realized he was looking at the Oakland Coliseum, which had been up for sale after the Raiders had gotten a new facility a couple years back. The blood-red banners and the water flooding the field had kind of obscured that.

 _"As you can see, we have finished flooding the field. And that means it's time for the battle you've all been waiting for! The Naval Arena!"_

The crowd in the feed roared in approval as five shipgirls steamed forward from their holding positions at the edges of the artificial lake.

 _"From Japan, we have the light cruiser Tenryuu! And in a stunning decision, she has forgone the use of her rigging! She'll be relying on speed, skill, and that wicked sword of hers! A bold move, but not a surprising one considering the obsolescence of her equipment."_

Grinning, the Tenryuu on screen unsheathed her sword and stabbed it skyward, eliciting a series of fangirlish squeals from the crowd.

 _"From the United States, we have the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts! Don't let her looks fool you, this little tyke is a vicious close-quarters combatant! And you know what they say about the little ones: guard your shins!"_

Sammy B. waved her two 5" guns, her twin 40mm letting off a burst of tracer to the applause that accompanied her.

 _"From Germany, we have the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin! Yes, a carrier. Yet more proof that size and role aren't everything! This aerial archer has a light-cruiser grade battery! Forget about that, and you're in for a world of hurt!"_

Graf's only response was to nonchalantly take a sip of coffee - not from a thermos, but from a ceramic mug. The other four combatants gave her a baleful glare for the arrogance.

 _"From the United Kingdom, we have the battleship Revenge! Her aim is impeccable, her armor is tough, and she does the cut-in as well as any destroyer I've ever seen! But these aren't torpedoes, oh no, these are 15" naval rifles! Trust me, you don't want to get hit by one of those!"_

The battleship's teeth glistened as she grinned, her hands thrown up in metal horns, head bobbing to a beat blaring from her headphones.

 _"And last, but certainly not least, from Italy, we have the heavy cruiser Gorizia, and speed is her game! She has pledged to restore the honor of the Italian Navy, and you can bet she'll go straight for Revenge! In both senses of the word!"  
_  
Indeed, the Italian shipgirl was glaring at Revenge, her 8" turrets twitching spasmodically.  
 _  
"And those are our combatants! But before we can begin, we have one more wrinkle to this fight!"_

On cue, five Abyssal Ka-class submarines burst onto the surface, prominent metal collars around their necks.

 _"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Guadalcanal was kind enough to supply us with five Abyssal submarines! Watch out, or you might just get torpedoed!"_

Holloway had seen enough. Confirming that the stream was indeed live, he clicked on the stream link, copied the URL, and sent it out to the other Admirals. This needed to be nipped in the bud ASAP.

Then he turned back to the stream.

What? Can't turn down a little good old-fashioned blood sport, especially since the football season was over.


	173. Rule 518

**Rule 518. Whoever had the bright idea to make an workshop where the U-Boats and Submarines could exchange tips and tactics and call it "Death from below - striking them where they're weak" is in trouble. The workshop itself was great, the traumatised shipgirls that got sunk by submarines are not.**

"Hello, everybody, and welcome to Death From Below," U-47 announced to the gathered subgirls.

"The workshop where we take your sorry asses and try to whip them into shape a little more!" Harder concurred.

"And, of course, have fun while doing so," Iku pointedly stated, eyeing Harder as she did so. "This is a friendly environment, and U-47 and I won't tolerate any meanness. Right, Harder?"

"Jesus fucking Christ, what're you looking at me for?!"

"Anyway," U-47 hastily cut in. "We've also got a special guest here representing the... other side, if you will."

"Yo," USS England greeted as she popped up from behind the desk. With an almighty shriek, every submarine in the room save the three instructors dove under their own desks, clutching their heads with their hands.

"I told you this was a bad idea," Iku sighed.

"And this is exactly why we need her," Harder countered. "We're never gonna be able to turn them into better submarines if they cower in fear every time an escort steams by."

Meanwhile, U-47 was silently debating how to handle this when England got up and walked over to the nearest cowering submarine, kneeling down and looking the shipgirl in the eye.

"Don't worry," she said in her usual monotone. "I don't bite."

Slowly, shakily, the submarine reached out - and grabbed England's cheeks, pulling them like taffy. The destroyer escort didn't react as the submarine watched in fascination, then grinned.

"Hey, she's safe!"

U-47 breathed out sigh of relief as her students clambered out from under the desks, and turned back to her fellow instructors.

"Don't you think we could have started them on someone a little less scary?" Iku demanded.

"Uh, girls?" U-47 began.

"Hey, be glad I didn't tap O'Bannon or, God forbid, Guadalcanal!" Harder shot back.

"Girls!"

"And this lesser-of-two-evils decision-making is what got you your current political situation."

" _YOU TAKE THAT BACK!"_

Sighing, U-47 reached over the desk and grabbed a paper fan a friend had bought her while in Japan. She then proceeded to smack both Iku and Harder upside the heads with it.

"If we could get on with the lesson?" she ground out through gritted teeth, pointedly tapping the fan in her palm.

"Yes, ma'am," both submarines groaned, clutching goose eggs sprouting from their scalps.

~o~

"Please tell me these haven't been distributed."

Washington could only sigh and shake her head. "Sorry, E. They're all over. I doubt we could get all of them if we tried."

Enterprise sighed, looking down at the small poster she'd found tacked to a bulletin board. "Death From Below - Striking them when they're weak!", it said. And the list of instructors... hoo boy.

"How's everyone reacting to this?" she asked carefully.

"I know what you're wondering, and Wasp, Yorktown, and most of the rest are fine," Washington reassured her. "They're not the problem. It's... Juneau and Indianapolis."

Enterprise winced. That made _far_ too much sense. "And... where are they now?"

"Well, Juneau's locked herself in her room, and last I heard from Atlanta she's cuddled up with her Sullivan brothers dolls and whimpering. And we only barely managed to keep her away from The Sullivans*. As for Indianapolis, I'm afraid I don't know where-"

Washington paused to check her phone, sighing explosively as she did so.

"Correction - she's at the Monterey Bay Aquarium wrestling the sharks. Again."

~o~

"Wait, Renown, don't-!" Royal Oak began before the line went dead. "She hung up on me! I can't believe it!"

The battleship glanced down at the paper in her hands before frantically shaking her head.

"No! I can do this! I can be strong!" Almost immediately, the resolve crumbled, and she slumped to the ground, clutching her head and crying. "No! I lied! I can't do this!"

"Uh, Royal Oak?"

"WHAT?!" she screeched, whirling on the voice.

Ardent winced at the attention, but plowed onward. "W-Would you mind letting us go? We're getting kinda hungry."

Her seven sisters behind her nodded agreement.

"No!" Royal Oak immediately denied. "You've gotta stay here and make sure the U-boats don't get me!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Antelope suddenly snapped, a vein pulsing on her forehead. "They're on our side now! They're not hiding under your bed, waiting to torpedo you!"

Suddenly, the closet creaked open. A blonde head popped out, a white '510' emblazoned on her cap.

"Oh, hey, Royal Oak," U-510 blandly stated before ducking her head back into the closet. "Hey, this leads to Portsmouth! How's the cleaning going?"

The reply was muffled, but U-510 seemed pleased by it.

"Right, I'll get out of your hair. See ya!" And with that, the U-boat closed the door and vanished.

There was a heavy silence for a moment before Antelope surged to her feet and opened the door.

"Tell you what, I'll talk to the Admiral about detaching some frigates to guard your room, okay?"

"That works..." Royal Oak numbly replied, still staring at her closet door as if, at any second, it would start spewing out homicidal U-boats.

 ***Yes, the US Navy had a destroyer named The Sullivans.**


	174. Rule 523

**Rule 523. Stop telling the British shipgirls that Bismarck's kitten Eugen aka Unsinkable Sam Jr is a bad luck charm that sinks Royal Navy shipgirls. Exeter, Lightning, Cossack and Arc Royal are currently plotting to get it either exorcised or otherwise get rid off it. Bismarck is furious.**

"Aww, look at the cute lil' kitty!" Exeter cooed as she reached out to scratch the black and white patched cat's ears. "Is he yours?"

"He's Bismarck's, actually. I'm watching him while she's deployed," Prinz Eugen answered as she lifted the cat out of the shorter heavy cruiser's reach. "Also, no touchy!"

Ark Royal's "What's his name, by the way?" was nearly drowned out by Lightning's and Cossack's simultaneous "Aww, why not?!"

"His name's Eugen, though you might know him better as Unsinkable Sam Junior," Prinz Eugen replied to the carrier, noting the well-hidden flinches from all but Exeter. "And you can't touch him because... uh, because..."

Sweating slightly, Prinz Eugen wracked her brains for an answer that wasn't "I have a crush on Bismarck, she named her cat after me, and now I'm _absolutely goddamn terrified_ of screwing up watching over him."

Oh, idea!

"Well, he's, y'know, kind of a bad luck charm for Royal Navy shipgirls," she smoothly answered. "Kinda like his namesake. Tends to get Royal Navy shipgirls sunk and all that, y'know?"

Prinz's triumph at her excuse was swiftly dashed at the expression on Lightning's face. "I-Is that why Legion got sunk?" she whimpered, tears shining in her eyes.

 _'Eugen was with Legion when she was sunk?!'_ Prinz nearly screamed.

Nearly, because Exeter snatching the cat out of her hands and bolting kind of distracted her.

"Hey!" Prinz Eugen shouted, attempting to give chase only for Cossack to kick her legs out from under her, knocking her to the ground as Ark Royal parked herself on the heavy cruiser's spine.

"Sorry, Prinz, but it's for his own good," Ark Royal apologized.

" _What's_ for his own good?! What are you planning to do?!" the German heavy cruiser demanded.

"Oh, don't worry, Exeter's just going to get a priest to get it exorcised," Cossack answered with all the nonchalance of discussing lunch.

" _What?!"_

"We're getting cleansed ourselves," Ark Royal added. "And if the exorcism doesn't work, there's certain to be a way to... dispose of the cat."

 _"WHAT?!"_

"I do hope you mean putting it up for adoption," Cossack said, giving the carrier a sidelong glance. "Because I will not be party to killing a cat."

"That is an absolute last resort, and-!"

CLONK!

Cossack and Prinz both blinked as Ark Royal, her face frozen, went stiff and then toppled over, revealing Lightning standing over her with one of her torpedoes brandished like a baseball bat.

"J-Just because he's u-unlucky, d-doesn't mean you have to k-kill him!" she cried, her face twisted between sadness and pure, undiluted rage.

"Wow, right to the conning tower," Cossack whistled.

"Thanks, Lightning," Prinz Eugen replied as she stood up. "Now, where is that priest you guys were planning to use? I need to get ahead of Exeter."

Cossack suddenly went shifty-eyed, pointedly not looking Eugen in the eyes.

"Yeah, about that..."

"And, done!" Exeter announced as she walked back up to them. "Geez, you guys worried me for a second. There wasn't any curse on this cat!"

" _She's_ a priest?!" Prinz Eugen demanded.

"Trust me, I was as surprised as you were when I found out," Cossack shot back. "So, he's safe?"

"Yup! Completely, 100% sa-"

"Oh, Eugen, there you are!"

Exeter had absolutely no warning before Eugen transformed from a docile feline to a murderball of teeth, claws, and fur, clawing at all the soft bits he could find. And sadly for Exeter, her magazine box protection system left quite a lot of soft bits in reach.

"AUGH, WHY?!" Exeter howled, flinging the cat in her haste to get him off of her. Eugen soared gracefully through the air before twisting into a perfect landing into Bismarck's arms.

"Aww, who's a good kitty?" Bismarck cooed, scratching under the cat's chin. "Why does he smell like holy water?"


	175. Rule 525

**Rule 525. Strong coffee is reserved for the human personnel. Shipgirls running on caffeine tend to do strange things.**

White Plains and Samuel B. Roberts gave each other knowing glances as the latter poked repeatedly at an insensate Johnston. "What's wrong with her?"

"Heermann bet her that she couldn't beat Kaizo Mario World in one sitting," Hoel grumbled.

"In my defense, I didn't expect her to actually pull an all-nighter on it," Heermann defended. "Like, _I_ think that's crazy, and that's saying something. C'mon, Sammy B., back me up here."

The destroyer escort didn't respond in favor of poking Johnston again.

"Well, she'd better wake up soon. We have a mission later today," White Plains pointed out.

Hoel and Heermann glanced at each other, then sighed in unison. "Well, desperate times and all that," Hoel said as the two stood up. "Heermann, you get the coffee, I'll go retrieve the Jack Daniels from our room."

"Did someone say 'Jack Daniels'?" Kidd interjected from the table across from them. "Captain Morgan's way better, and I can get you some right now." With that, the destroyer pulled a bottle of the namesake rum from... somewhere. "Here you go!"

"Thanks, Kidd," Hoel said as she took the bottle. Heermann arrived with the cup of coffee, and Hoel popped the cap and poured a good third of the rum into it.

"Wakey, wakey, Johnston," Hoel sing-songed as she waved the cup under her sister's nose. It took a few tries, but Johnston managed to reach out and grab the mug and take a sip.

"Five... four... three... two... one..." Heermann deadpanned.

Suddenly, Johnston jerked in her seat, her hair standing on end and her eyes rapidly shifting colors.

"Ignition."

"GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE!"

"Lift-off. We have lift-off."

"So, uh, how long is this mission going to take?" Hoel asked White Plains as Johnston chugged down the rest of the concoction.

"About three hours, why?"

Hoel sighed and looked back at the very hyper Johnston. "Because she's going to crash in two."

~o~

Admiral Goto leaned against a wall, panting. What the hell was that?! It looked like Akatsuki, but it sure as hell _wasn't_ the cute destroyer he often saw following Tenryuu. Akatsuki was adorable and somewhat awkward, not... sultry! Thank god she still looked like she was twelve, that had been bad enough as is.

 _'Okay, think! What would she do next?!'_

 _'... Follow me. Shit. Okay. Would getting help from Kongo make things better or worse? ... You know what, I think I'll risk it.'_

Goto finished catching his breath, straightened his collar, and began marching to the quarters he shared with Kongo. He stood in front of the door for a second, steeling his nerves, opened it, and-

Nearly wet himself then and there. Sitting at the wooden table were Akatsuki and Kongo, the former still drinking that hellish mix of vodka and Black Blood of the Earth coffee, the latter her usual tea. That wasn't the scary part. The scary part was the tense smiles on their faces accompanied by throbbing veins and a palpable aura of passive-aggressiveness, the kind that drove sane men to sleep on the couch for the night.

Slowly, quietly, Goto closed the door and began marching back to his office. He had no illusions that they hadn't seen him, but hopefully they'd be too busy resolving the dispute to go after him. In the meantime, he could get a head start on his taxes.

~o~

"You've... never had coffee."

Phoenix's voice was the picture of strained incredulity as she stared at her lab partner South Dakota.

"No...?" South Dakota hesitantly replied. "Indiana always said I shouldn't have stimulants. Besides, I don't think it's that big a deal."

"Not that big a deal?!" Phoenix demanded. "Dakota, coffee is one of the three lifebloods of the Navy! To not drink it is... is... Ah, fuck it." The light cruiser shoved her mug at the battleship. "Drink."

"But-"

 _"Drink."_

"Fine," South Dakota sighed, taking a sip. For a moment, nothing happened, and then South Dakota started quivering.

"Uh, Dakota?" Phoenix said, reaching a hand out to her. "Are you-?"

"ThisstuffiskindofinterestingbutIdon'tseewhatthebigdealis."

Phoenix blinked as she parsed the rapid-fire sentence. "Uh, well, my personal coffee machine is broken, so-"

 _"Broken?"_

"Uh, yeah, I had to use one of the cafeteria machines, and-"

Phoenix didn't have time to finish that sentence before South Dakota practically teleported to where it was sitting on a shelf.

 _"_ _ **Aha!**_ _ **YesIsee.**_ _Asimpledoubleboilerwitharatherclever_ _ **condenser**_ _anda_ _ **percolationsystem**_ _and_ _ **steamerHA!**_ _"_

"Uh, Dakota...?"

 _"Doyouhaveany_ _ **information**_ _aboutthecoffee_ _ **extraction**_ _process?"_ the battleship demanded before Phoenix could get a word in edgewise.

"You... could check Wikipedia?"

Phoenix only caught a glimpse of South Dakota's iPhone coming out, let alone the typing.

 _"Thankyou! Whythisisa_ _ **simple**_ _exercisein_ _ **chemistry!**_ _Whereissomerawcoffee? NevermindIshall_ _ **find**_ _it!"_

South Dakota promptly vanished, leaving a thoroughly befuddled Phoenix behind.

"Well, shit."

~o~

"I have the cooks shouting in my ear, the San Diego police complaining about a break-in to a local Starbucks, half the engineering staff commandeered, and I still don't know what South Dakota's building!" Admiral Holloway practically shouted as he followed Phoenix to the Theoretical Science lab.

"And I told you, Admiral, that it'd be faster and easier to show you," the light cruiser retorted. "Besides, I already know this is at least partially my fault."

Phoenix dramatically threw the doors to the lab open, revealing South Dakota standing between a crowd of engineers and a colossal machine festooned with whistles, dials, and lots of brass.

 _"Coffee's ready!"_ she announced.

"What... how did... It's only been an hour!" Holloway stammered.

"Don't ask," Phoenix cut in. "Seriously, don't."

 _"Well..."_ South Dakota stated as she held up her mug. _"Here's to science!"_

"Wait."

South Dakota blinked as Admiral Holloway extricated the mug from her hands.

"As Admiral, I should try this first," he announced, before whispering an aside to Phoenix. "Besides, if the regular stuff set her off, who knows what this'll do."

"Good call, Admiral," Phoenix concurred.

Holloway took a sniff. "Nice aroma." And then a sip.

He froze, wide-eyed, a single tear drifting down his cheek.

"Uh, Admiral?" Phoenix asked, waving a hand in front of him. "Are you alright?"

"It's... perfect..." he breathed. "The taste is a perfect blend of all the tastes and essences that make coffee what it _is_. A perfect blend - and yet I can discern each and every one - _perfectly_. Even the way the liquid adheres to the inside of the cup - indicative of the way it flows along the tastebuds - is aesthetically _perfect_. It reveals the mathematical perfection of the _mug itself!_ The delicate smoothness of the glazed ceramic, with its own inherent temperature, which mitigates the otherwise extreme heat of the coffee itself-"

"Dakotaaaaaaa..." Phoenix growled as Admiral Holloway continued on his monologue.

"I can fix that!" South Dakota hastily shouted. "Just... give me some time!"


	176. Rule 533

**533\. To the guy that accidentally lost the Admiral's wedding ring, you better hope you find it because the ensuing chaos and collateral damage is coming out of your pay. Any medical bills you'll get, you're still paying it yourself.**

 **AN: Sheo Darren's masterpiece. See if you can spot all the references!**

 **Day By Day**  
 _Coral Sea_  
South Pacific

Abyssals can be roughly divided into two groups. The vast majority are sentient monsters that run on pure bloodthirsty instinct with an unhealthy dose of cunning. These drones make up the endless swarms that constantly threaten human cities and populations.

Much rarer are those with greater-than-average intelligence. They possess the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. These Abyssals are easy enough to identify. The general rule is that the more a specimen looks like a human (or a ship-girl for some of those paranoid minds who worry about how certain Abyssal leaders resemble specific ship-girls), the smarter it is. And the smarter it is, the more dangerous it is.

Most of these sapient examples are the Princesses and Demons. They direct the lesser Abyssals on tactical and strategic levels. These enemy commanders are priority targets and extremely deadly.

But there are exceptions among the self-aware Abyssals. The most prominent examples are the members of the Enemy Waters Fleet. Commanded by Admiral Suwabe, these Abyssals have distinct personalities and lack the least bit of malevolence that characterizes their siblings. The Enemy Waters Fleet is not just friendly, but an ally of humanity and the ship-girls they once competed with.

[WO... WO... I am WO... WO is me... WOe is me...]

The Standard Carrier Wo Class patrolling the Coral Sea by its lonesome was indeed smarter than the typical Abyssal and the usual Wo Class. In fact, this particular Abyssal was every bit as smart as a Hime or an Oni.

Wo was not a member of the Enemy Waters Fleet. But she was also not particularly hostile to humans or their ship-girl protectors. She had never attacked humans, only fought to protect herself from overeager ship-girls, and never tried to sink her opponents.

Right now Wo was thinking deeply. Her thoughts revolved around a particular human. An Admiral of the Self-Defense Force of the country called Japan.

~o~

 **FLASH! BAAACK! SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE!**  
 _  
Smoke trailed from Wo's over-sized hat as she hurried to nebulous safety. She had just come off second best in a fight with two fleet carrier ship-girls, one with a long mane of hair as white as her own and the other with shorter gray hair tied into two locks._

 _Her dive-bombers had roughed up the white-haired ship-girl while her CAP shredded most of the enemy attack aircraft. She also managed to dodge the torpedoes and all but one of the bombs launched her way._

 _But the single 250 kg armor-piercing bomb that got through her defense had burrowed into her hat and exploded deep within her symbiotic headgear. Combined with the piled-up underwater damage due to the dozen near-misses, she was in no shape to continue fighting. And if this continued, she might get sunk... or sink one of her opponents..._

[No!]  
 _  
So Wo broke contact as soon as possible and fled at top speed, hoping that her opponents got her stern message and stopped chasing her._

 _Why didn't they want to leave her alone? Wo didn't want to hurt them, so why did they want to hurt her? Did Wo do something wrong? Why did they hate Wo?_

 _That was when the tearful Abyssal collided with something big._

 _It took Wo a few moments to recover her shaken senses. Her briefly blurred vision took in the sight of the atoll that had hit her._

 _Tall. White clothes. Heavy armament. A Fast Battleship Ta Class? But why was its hair black like the Ru Class?_

 _"Hah! It has no effect! The Nagato-class' armor is not just for show."_

 _Wo's power plant faltered. She had accidentally run into the second biggest gun of the Japanese ship-girl fleet._

 _What was going to happen to her now?_

~o~

"Nagato..." Admiral Goto groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why is there a Wo-class carrier in your quarters?"

~o~

So went her first encounter with the human Admiral. But it was not the last. For how could she be satisfied with just one fleeting meeting?

~o~

"Kongo," Goto said as evenly as he could. "Why are you having tea with these Abyssals and not, y'know, shooting them?"

~o~

He didn't recognize Wo, of course. Most humans couldn't. To them, every Abyssal looked the same and deserved the same treatment.

Such a generalization and dismissal and displeasure made her feel... strange. Thinking of how the human Admiral might consider her in such a light felt... painful.

It was not like the pain due to injuries from bombs and gunfire and torpedoes. Her chest hurt. She could feel it tighten. Heat up. Rattle as if her boilers were attempting a cold start even though they felt like they were going to melt.

[WOt is this mysterious feeling?]

Sunlight glinted upon metal. Wo stiffened. Was it an enemy? Light reflected from the cockpit of a recon plane or the periscope of a lewdmarine?

The sparkle came from a coral reef exposed by the low tides. Wo ordered one of her already-aloft scout bombers to check it out while her symbiotic hat reached inside its mouth for more aircraft to prepare. When her recon plane gave her the all-clear, she approached the reef under heavy air coverage and used her cane to expertly snag the glinting item caught on a calcified branch.

[WOt is this?]

The object was a circular band of soft metal the color of the sun. It radiated a significant amount of power on the same wavelengths and spectrum as the ship-girls.

And yet, despite it being opposed to her, Wo found it-

[WOah... Pretty...]

It looked like it could fit around the fourth finger of her left hand.

Well, why not?

~o~

 **At The Same Time**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_  
Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture

"Oh, shit!"

Captain Sousuke Yonehara occupied one of the most thankless positions in the world: he ran the Logistics Division of Yokosuka Naval Base. It was his duty to keep the base supplied with every necessity and some luxuries ranging from good food to fuel oil.

He cut his teeth dealing with JMSDF personnel, who despite their civilian status and meek appearance were mischievous kappa. He'd been dragged through the various circles of hell by the devil dogs, the US Marines, and their American Navy minders. He thought he'd seen it all.

And then the ship-girls came. And ate out the gallery. And built Gundams & trebuchets. And lewded him. And called him Maibara.

And one in particular rubbed salt into the raw flesh of his open wounds by being so oblivious to his romantic interest in her even as she kidnapped other ship-girls' boyfriends and solicited dating advice from British-built armored cruisers who couldn't land a single koi, much less the Admiral she was fishing for.

So Yonehara was not in a good mood when he snapped "What is it now?" at the panicking pair.

"Captain!" That was one of his sergeants, an experienced man who only panicked at the worst possible time. He was accompanied by the destroyer Harusame. Both human and ship-girl were as pale as milk. "The provisional ring that HQ sent to Admiral Goto has gone missing!" they reported together.

Yonehara winced. Provisional rings were artifacts that could boost the power of a ship-girl. They were very difficult and expensive to create. They also looked like wedding rings, making them even more invaluable to certain ship-girls and admirals.

"How did you lose it?" he demanded to know.

"We're not sure," his sergeant worried while biting his fingernails.

"Maybe when the Abyssals attacked our supply convoy?" Harusame recalled. "Evil Me scored a glancing hit on my supply drum before I got away..."

"Great. And we only caught it now." Yonehara glared at his human subordinate. "You better hope you find it because the ensuing chaos and collateral damage is coming out of your pay," he warned. "Any medical bills you'll get, you're still paying it yourself."

Then he turned on the tearful Harusame. "And you, Harusame, if they trace this back to you, you'll be doing expeditions alone in Antarctica for the rest of time, with your wages garnished to pay for all the repairs on the naval base. Do note that it is a mercy compared to what the other ship girls will do to you," Yonehara reminded her.

As if to prove his point, there came an anguished cry from beyond the grave.

"W̧͕̹͚̭H̛Ó͇̰ L͎̯OS̬T̷͓ ̨͍͈͖̺̣T̮H̩̤̙̻̻̼̪́E̜ ͕̹͚̮͕̺̭À̹̩͚͉D̦͎̠̗ͅMĮR̹A̗̙͕̲͍͘ͅL̖'̥̖͉̳̕Ś ̺͚̗̞̕ẂE̡̝͕̘̲D͇͉̰D̜̟̞̪I̜̗N̪̫̼̪͚̤̱͠G̷͍̗͉̞̱͎̤ ̤͔͚̝R̨̳̗̳̤I͙̯N͕̤̲̹̹G̴͖̙̦ ̮͓̰̱̗͇͕TH̢̰̮͖̹͓̩̞A̸̜̜̺̝T͎̤̲͔̻̲͝ ̰̖̼͇̝̟̺W̯À̰S̶̼̼̠̣͔ ̱͍̥̙̜̥S͘U̼̬ͅP̮͇̭̱̩͜ͅP҉͍̣͈̜̼ͅO̼̼͖͔S̤͈͙̝͎͓͉͠E͔̫͞D̴͍ ̠̻͉̦͈͔ͅṬ̸͇̮̞̹O͍ ̳̱͉̞̩̩G̹͚͜O̫̳͇̤͚ ͍̥̺T͚̠̺͎̕O̟͉̺̠̣͠ ͖͈̮͎̼͚̗M̹̙͇̲̀ͅE̷̻͕̗̬̲?̞"͇

"Well, shit," Yonehara swallowed. It appeared that a certain fast battleship had learned about this disaster. And given how she sounded colder than the reception he got from Ashigara and was no longer punctuating her statements with DESU/DESS, he assumed Kongou had fused Air Vent Mode and Battle of Samar Mode into a new horrible menace that threatened the galaxy. Yes, galaxy.

"Kongou has first dibs on you guys. So better make sure that thirty second head start is used well," he advised. "Find that ring ASAP!"

"Y-y-yes, Sir!"

"2nd Destroyer Division, Harusame, heading out!"

~o~

 **The Day After**

"(Paging Admiral Goto,)" chimed the speakers mounted on the wall. "(Paging Admiral Goto...)"

The JMSDF Admiral pried his aching eyes off the latest incidence report from Captain Yonehara of the Logistics Division. Apparently the provisional wedding ring slated for him had gone missing. One of his logistics sergeants had taken a leave of indefinite absence and Harusame was undergoing treatment for PTSD alongside the Taffies.

There was a silver lining to this cloud. Admiral Goto no longer needed to pick a ship-girl as his provisional partner. The competition for secretary ship had been ferocious enough before Ooyodo prevailed. He didn't want to think what Kongou, Nagato, & Ashigara (among others) would do to be The One.

"(-there is a Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship IV here at the lobby asking for you.)"

Nagato looked away from the large screen of her Yuubari-designed laptop, which she and Hoppou were using to play a round of Yuubari-modded X-Wing vs TIE Fighter.

"A Wo Class? Did Admiral Suwabe send Wo-chan over to hand-deliver a message?" she wondered.

"Pewpewpew," chanted Hoppou as her King Hell God Emperor Starfighter of Death pumped proton torpedo after proton torpedo into the distracted Nagato's MC80 Mon Calamari Star Cruiser. "Go home and be a family man, Rebel scum!"

"Ah! No fair, Hoppou-chan!"

"I doubt it." Goto knew that Wo-chan, the Wo Class of the Enemy Waters Fleet, was afraid of him for some reason that he couldn't fathom. This braver Wo Class was probably the one who had been enjoying a spot of tea with Kongou a while back.

He glanced at the clock on his office wall. Yes, three bong- that is, three o'clock. _Damn it, Kongou._ Just about ready for tea-time.

"I wonder what she wants," Goto muttered as he brought a blueberry muffin to his mouth. It was his favorite and well-deserved snack, a quick pick-me-up to perk himself up before the inevitable flying tackle-hug from his clingy fast battleship.

"(She is wearing your missing wedding ring-)"

A chunk of berry-flavored pastry lodged itself within the startled Goto's windpipe. The alarmed Nagato rushed over to him to implement a Heimlich maneuver.

"(-and is claiming to be your war bride.)"

Nagato accidentally turned the abdominal thrust into a painful bear hug that caused Goto's ribcage to creak but also got the obstructing chunk of muffin to plop out of Goto's throat and hit Hoppou's head, who promptly began to cry.

"(Please hurry,)" begged the speaker. "(Her eyes are shaped like hearts and they're glowing **pink**.)"

"Is that even possible?" Nagato wondered as she apologized to the sniffling Hoppou by patting the little Abyssal's head while Goto chugged down the last of his cold coffee to soothe his throat.

"(Wo wants to see my husband!)"

Goto snorted coffee from his nostrils.

"She sounds familiar," Nagato thought as she absently tossed a happily-squealing Hoppou into the air.

"(Holy shit... Yes, the eyes of her **hat** are also heart-shaped and pink,)" confirmed the PA.

Goto jinxed himself by saying, "How bad could it be?"

"(Oh, hello, Kongou! WOuld you know where WO can find WO's husband Admiral Goto?)"

Goto swore he could feel a chill rivaling that of the North, Sea which he had once visited during a goodwill trip to Europe.

(THWACK!)

"(Ah! Kongou! Why did you slap WO? WOt did WO do?)"

"(I will be the one who wins over the Admiral's heart, you... you vile homewrecker!)"

"(WOt? Admiral Goto is WO's husband! WO has the ring to prove it! You're the thief!)"

(SMACK!)

"(Ah! You wot, m8? I'll fokin rekt ya, m8!)"

"Move it, Nagato!" Goto made a beeline for the door as the base building began to shake.

~o~

By the time the breathless Admiral, the Big Seven battleship, and the Installation Type riding on the latter's shoulders with arms held to either side while making airplane noises got there, the lobby looked like a war zone. And at ground zero Kongou was grappling the Wo Class, their clothes shredded and their cheeks red and waterfalls of tears spilling from their eyes.

"Traitor!" The fast battleship wrenched at fistfuls of short white tufts. "You were my friend! But you used me to get close to my Teitoku!"

"You WOn't keep WO away from WO's husband!" shrieked the standard carrier while yanking at brunette locks. The ring finger on her left hand bore the missing provisional marriage ring that had caused so much trouble.

Wo's nice hat hung from a nearby coat rack, tentacles flailing helplessly as it tried to free itself.

"I/WO love/WOve him!" both of them screamed at each other.

"Stand down!" Goto roared in his best command voice. "Both of you!"

To his surprise, they immediately obeyed, Kongou reduced to a sniffling mess, Wo wringing her pale hands.

Goto considered how to handle this headache. Fortunately, this scrap was not going to generate diplomatic repercussions since this Wo was a loner who was not affiliated with the Enemy Waters Fleet. One less source of stress...

He'd witnessed the many sides Kongou showed the world. Tea Time. Big Sister. Air Vent. Sherlock Holmes. Goto Sexual. Battle of Samar. Wise Battlecruiser of the First World War. But never had he seen her look so morose and vulnerable.

She didn't get angry because someone else was angling for her Admiral. The big-hearted battleship had felt furious because someone she considered a friend had betrayed her trust and ruined their friendship.

And the Wo Class... this Wo... She had renounced the Abyss, entered enemy territory and fought one of the most experienced and skilled ship-girls just to see him. She called him 'danna', her husband. She claimed she WOv-

No, Goto couldn't finish that statement, it was too... too much for him right now. In the future, the vaguely defined future, perhaps... but not today.

They were such children, the ship-girls, but they were **his** children. And just as Tenryuu mothered Destroyer Division Six, so too would he watch over them as a father.

"Kongou," Goto spoke up. "You shared me with Sealion I. You can do the same with Wo, correct?"

The former battlecruiser only remembered it now. "...Yes, desu," she admitted.

"And you, Wo," he told the Abyssal. "You did not have to cause a scene. There are procedures and rules to securing a meeting with me. You should have done things properly."

"I'm sorry," apologized the chagrined Abyssal.

Still frowning, Goto brought up his gloved hands. Kongou and Wo flinched, but he only placed his hands on their heads to ruffle their hair.

"From this day forth, you two are not allowed to fight each other," Goto commanded. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Teitoku/Admiral."

"And repair the damage you inflicted upon this lobby," he added. That should be punishment enough.

"Yes," they meekly agreed, their cheeks growing red as their Admiral kept fluffing their hair.

"Mama," Hoppou whispered to her adoptive mother figure. "Why were they fighting over Papa?"

"Hush, Hoppou-chan," she was reminded.

"But-"

Nagato bribed Hoppou with headpats. It was super effective.

~o~

 **One Day More**

"To all personnel and ship-girls," announced the ruler-straight-faced Admiral Goto. "We would like to introduce the newest addition to our forces." He gestured to the green-eyed albino girl standing beside him. "This is our new standard carrier, JDS WOrktown...

"Hello," greeted WOrktown. "I'm not gonna get rough for todaaaaaay."

Beside her, Kongou applauded. She wasn't planning to lose to her friend when it comes to Admiral Goto's heart, but she doesn't want to lose her friend, either.

USS Enterprise eloquently summed up the feelings of the assembled Japanese and American ship-girls. "What," sighed the middle child of the Yorktown sisters. Yorkie, both Yorkies, CV-6 **and** CV-10, were never going to believe this.

I-168's periscope was checking out something else. "WOah," she muttered. "Dat stack..."


	177. Rule 535

**Rule 535. Aircraft are not allowed to fly indoors.**

Jeff and Adam were just your average Navy seamen. Well, we say average, but standards had dropped just a tad by the time they enlisted. A quarter of a million casualties will do that to an organization. And these two were no exception. They did the bare minimum of work - that much had been hammered into them in training - but, well, there was a reason they were posted to a shipgirl base and given minimal responsibility. After the shark in CVN-80 Enterprise's bilges...

Point is, after doing the day's work, they usually decamped to a table in the cafeteria, marijuana vaporizors cleverly disguised as e-cigs in their mouths and whiling away the hours playing Angry Birds and Clash of Clans on their phones.

Overall, a pretty normal day for them.

And then a fairy-sized PBY Catalina flew by, the crew quite frantic, if you could see them through the small windows.

"Hey, Jeff," Adam said lazily.

"Yes, Adam?" Jeff replied.

"That blue plane is moving."

The two looked up from their phones long enough to see the PBY fly past them and down the hall.

"Huh. Wonder what that was about."

The PBY was shortly followed by four of its fellows, a trio of Dauntlesses with Marine markings, and a squadron of F4F Wildcats, all led by a B-17E with one of its fairy crew sticking out of the shattered upper turret shouting a steady stream of "Hey!"s at the PBY they were chasing.

Mentally shrugging, the two went back to their phones.

About five minutes later, the first PBY darted into the cafeteria, over the heads of the two seamen, and into the kitchen. The pursuers - who seem to have acquired a flight of Marine Corsairs along the way - followed closely behind, machine-guns blazing. This was naturally followed by a lot of screaming as the kitchen staff found their day rudely interrupted.

The only reaction Jeff and Adam had was to pick up and examine a fairy-sized .50 shell casing that had bounced off the latters head.

"Wow, it's so tiny."

"Wanna keep it?"

"Sure."

The exchange had just finished when the planes burst out of the kitchen again, covered in spaghetti sauce, syrup, and god knows what else, plus a kitchen knife embedded in the fuselage of the B-17. It was clear that the pursued Catalina was in trouble: one engine was smoking and both the observation blisters in the middle were shattered. In desperation, the pilot suddenly dove up, grinning as his pursuers shot ahead underneath him-

And promptly ate his words as his Catalina embedded itself in the ceiling.

"Hey..."

Jeff glanced down at the vaporizer he was holding. "Hey, man, I think we got some bad product."

~o~

Langley sighed as she looked up at the ceiling. The pilot had been easy to retrieve, but not the PBY. The four Seabees she had contacted to get it unstuck had been at it for two hours, and they were still trying to pry it loose.

Looking back down, she turned her best stern gaze on the quartet in front of her, and was gratified when they all flinched.

"I am very disappointed in you all," she admonished. "Albemarle, you need to be more careful with your seaplanes and torpedoes. You nearly hit Currituck!"

"I'm sorry..." the seaplane tender whimpered, unable to look Langley in the eye.

"And as for you-" Langely continued, cutting off Currituck's smug grin. "You entirely overreacted, sending your PBYs and Dauntlesses after Albemarle's plane."

"But-!"

"Buts are for ashtrays," the carrier-turned-seaplane-tender cut in. "Your actions escalated a minor disciplinary issue into a major incident."

"Yes, Langley."

Finally, Langley turned to the squirming escort carriers that had supplied the other planes, the fighters.

"Anzio, Corregidor, since this is the first time you've ever been involved in an incident like this, I'm going to write this off as getting caught up in the excitement. That said-"

Here Langley turned on her best, brightest smile. "Consider this your warning. I won't be so lenient again."

The nodding that followed probably would've given a human whiplash.

"Well, off you go, you two!" Langley said, waving them away. "I need to determine punishments."

Anzio and Corregidor took the opportunity to bolt.

"Sorry, guys, better you than us," the latter muttered.


	178. Rule 536

**Rule 536. If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying again: TORPEDOES ARE NOT TOYS!**

Fubuki sighed as she straightened out the sheaf of papers she was holding, and stacked them in her outbox. She sighed again when she looked at the tower stack that was the inbox, especially when Ooyodo popped her head in to add some more.

"Well, I did ask for this," she muttered, before going back to work.

Minutes passed, papers were stacked, and slowly, every-so-slowly, the paper stack in the inbox shrank. Finally, Fubuki put down her pen and shook her aching wrist.

"Writers' cramp..." she muttered, standing up and heading over to the window. It was a beautiful sunny day out, and the destroyer found herself wishing she was out there. Alas, she had to settle with opening it and gazing out at the fluffy clouds, the blue sky, the William sisters William R. Rush and William M. Wood wheeling by on office chairs using a pair of torpedoes like swords wait what.

Fubuki's eyes widened as she confirmed that yes, the two Americans were using torpedoes as _swords._ That would've been bad enough, but they were using _Long Lances_. Y'know, with the compressed oxygen propulsion liable to turn into a rapidly expanding cloud of hot gasses (i.e. explode) at any second.

Outright throwing the window open, Fubuki hopped out the window, landing on an overhanging roof below. She slid down the roof, the tiles clacking underfoot, and then jumped off the edge, landing to the ground with audible crash that left the concrete cracked. The two Americans were out of sight, but being on office chairs, they weren't likely to be deviating from their last known path.

Now thoroughly fuming, Fubuki stomped around the corner just in time to see the two destroyers slam their torpedoes together _juuust_ right to set off the oxygen. The resulting explosion was impressive.

"And that is why torpedoes are not toys," Fubuki admonished as she grabbed both stunned and thoroughly scorched American destroyers by their collars and began dragging them off. "You're lucky those are training torpedoes, real ones might have killed you."

Dropping them off in the infirmary, Fubuki was just about to get back to work when she heard the sounds of shouting coming from one of the fire roads. Frowning, she walked over, and was greeted with the sight of two of the newly summoned Akizuki-class destroyers shooting towards each other on office chairs. Yoizuki and Natsuzuki, if she remembered correctly. And in each hand-

"Of course," Fubuki sighed. The special-type destroyer started jogging towards them, rapidly building up steam. She was just fast enough to get between them and stop their forward momentum before their torpedoes hit.

"Give me those," she snapped, yanking the weapons out of the two destroyers' hands and examining them.

"Aw, c'mon, Fubuki, we were just-!" Yoizuki started to protest, only to freeze under Fubuki's disappointed stare.

"I am going to dispose of these," Fubuki said, far too calmly. "And then you will meet me in my office so we can discuss torpedo safety. Understood?"

Two nods.

"Good."


	179. Rule 537

**Rule 537. All talk of, "Heading over to the Pentagon to beat some sense into those feather merchants," will cease immediately.**

 _"Are you fucking kidding me?!"_

Liberty ship John W. Brown blinked and paused in her examination of one of the massive wooden crates in front of her. That had come from Jeremiah O'Brien, who was in charge of actually opening them. Which meant that that shout was a bad sign.

"What is it?" she asked as she leaned backwards.

"Look at this!" O'Brien shouted, reaching down and pulling out the contents of one of the crates.

Brown blinked. Blinked again. Then rubbed her eyes. "Is- Is that a missile?"

"Yup," O'Brien confirmed. "I'd have to ask Mississippi or Little Rock, but I'm pretty sure this is an Evolved Sea Sparrow."

Nonplussed, Brown glanced down at the shipping manifest they'd been given. "Isn't that crate supposed to hold food?"

"Yes!"

Brown glanced around the warehouse, and the mountains of crates stacked within. She sighed. This was going to take forever.

"Alright, start grabbing those crates. We need to make sure this isn't a one-time mistake."

~o~

Holloway blinked. Opened his mouth, and then closed it. Blinked again.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked, his voice strained.

"The latest food shipment was replaced by missiles," Brown stated slowly and carefully. "Evolved Sea Sparrows, Tomahawks, SM-6 and SM-3 - you name it, there's a destroyer carrying it in its VLS cells."

"That's what I was afraid of..." the admiral groaned, his hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "And Jeremiah O'Brien?"

"She was planning to go to the Pentagon to, and I quote, 'Beat some sense into those feather merchants'," the Liberty ship answered.

"Please tell me someone went to stop her," Holloway groaned. "I do not need another spat with the Pentagon, not after that debacle with the Seventh Fleet."

"Don't worry, she doesn't know how to drive and is deathly afraid of flying," Brown stated dismissively. "She's not going anywhere."

~o~

Queenfish and Pampanito each took a sip of their beer as another Prius passed in front of San Diego Naval Base.

"Man, there are a lot of those things," Queenfish remarked.

"You think this is a lot? Go to the Bay Area sometime, they're everywhere," Pampanito countered.

The two subs watched in silence for a few minutes more, pausing on occasion to take another sip of beer or punch each other in the shoulder when a Bug drove past. And then a semitruck drove by, a very familiar Liberty ship clinging to the top.

"... Was that Jeremiah O'Brien?" Queenfish wondered.

"Yup."

"Do you think she knows she's actually heading to the port, and that that's her destination?"

"Nope."

"Hmm... should we stop her?"

"Hell no."

"Thought so."


	180. Rule 541

**Rule 541. Don't mess with William D Porter's pet fish.**

 **AN: Just to clarify: the oppossum did start it.**

"...And that's why Mr. Fluffykins is not allowed to be unsupervised anymore," Strong grumbled. "Jesus fucking Christ, your dog mauls one opossum in self-defense and suddenly every animal rights group west of the Rockies is riding your ass. It's an oppossum! Why can't we swap ours with Australia's, they'd be more at home there!"

"R-Right..." William D. Porter said hesitantly. Privately, she thought 'Mr. Fluffykins' was a rather unsuitable name for a hundred-pound Great Dane, but whatever.

"So, do you have any pets, Willie?" Strong asked.

"W-Well..." she hedged, poking her fingers together. "I have a fish..."

"Lame," Chevalier scoffed. "Ow, hey!"

"Be nice," Nicholas scolded. "What kind of fish?"

"It'd probably be easier if I showed you," Willie replied, standing up. "Come on!"

Her fellow Fletchers shared a glance and all mentally shrugged before following. To their surprise, Willie didn't lead them to her room. Instead, she led them underground into the tunnels and storage areas under the base.

"Oh, he's a bit big for your usual fish tank," Willie answered when De Haven asked why her fish was in the basement. "You'll see!"

Finally, the five destroyers rounded a corner, and all but Willie gaped at the massive tank in front of them. That, and the massive fish inside.

"Meet George!" Willie chirped, spinning around to indicate the massive fish. "He's a Goliath grouper, and the biggest on record! Ten feet long and almost a thousand pounds!"

"I-I see..." Nicholas stammered. "A-And what does he eat?"

Willie opened her mouth to respond, only to whirl around as a hatch began to open in the top of the tank.

"Oh, you guys are in for a treat!" Willie informed them. "Today's the special day!"

"What do you mean, special?"

Any further response from the other destroyers was cut off when a leopard shark was dumped in the tank. George took one look at the shark and began swimming after it. The shark, for its part, was too dazed from transport to put up any resistance.

"Amazing, huh?" Willie sighed dreamily as the feeding proceeded. "Goliath groupers are so big they can eat sharks. Kind of a reversal from the usual view, huh? Nature is so fascinating..."

"Y-Yeah, fascinating," De Haven ground out, looking distinctly green around the gills. "Can we go now?"

~o~

 _Three weeks later_

It was a tired, battered five-destroyer division that limped back into San Diego's shipgirl quarters. Well, aside from Willie. Somehow, she was unscathed. The one consolation was that the Abyssal fleet that had attacked was in even worse shape. That, and the fact that if Willie hadn't been there things would have been so much worse.

"Thanks for saving my ass out there, Willie," De Haven groaned as she massaged sore muscles. "Fucking dive bombers, why do they always go for me first?"

William D. Porter shrugged before heading for the door. "If you guys don't mind, I'm gonna go check up on George, okay?"

She got back a series of muffled agreements as her sisters flopped down on their beds, and set off.

Five minutes later, De Haven, Strong, Chevalier, and Nicholas were jolted to attention by an enraged shriek.

"W-Was that Willie?" Chevalier stammered.

"Let's move, people!" Nicholas barked - only to find she couldn't move. "Uh, shit."

"Maybe Willie's fine?" Strong asked hopefully.

Suddenly, the door to their room was flung open, revealing Willie D. standing there, panting and looking absolutely pissed off.

"Those fuckers ate George!" she shrieked.

The other Fletchers blinked. " _Really?_ " Chevalier demanded.

"Yes! And they're not even good eating!" Willie raged as she stomped over to where her rigging was and threw it on. "They're still retreating, right?"

"Uh, yeah, but Willie, you can't-!"

Not listening to her elder sister, Willie bolted out the door, leaving Nicholas just sitting there lamely.

"Fight an entire Abyssal Fleet alone?" De Haven finished, her eyes wide.

"I'll call the Admiral," Nicholas stated, only to find her arms couldn't move. "Ah, could one of you...?"

"I got it..."

~o~

Admiral Holloway sighed as he tried to placate the destroyers in front of him. "I'm sorry, but I can't risk valuable shipgirls to save one destroyer," he said. "Besides, I have next to no forces available to sortie. Believe me, if I did I'd be sending them out in a heartbeat just to make sure the Abyssals don't get away."

De Haven, Nicholas, and Strong looked downcast, while Chevalier was clearly fuming but unwilling to press the point.

"At this point, all we can do is pray that William D. Porter survives."

Naturally, at that point there was a knocking at his door.

"I'll get it," Strong sighed. She stood up, opened the door - and screamed.

"Jeez, Strong, you look like you've seen a ghost. An actual ghost, like the ones Hornet has."

There, standing in the door was William D. Porter, drenched in black Abyssal ichor and a fishing line slung over her shoulder. Holloway could just see the severed heads of four Wo-class carriers.

"How..." he breathed.

"As it turns out, when I sortie alone my enemies suffer bad luck," she stated. "Hopefully this'll drive home the message not to mess with my fish. Now, if you don't mind, I'm absolutely starving and in dire need of a hot bath. I'll talk to you later, Admiral."

And with that, she strode out of the office, still trailing the Wo heads.

"What."

"The."

" _Fuck!"_

Admiral Holloway glanced to Nicholas. "You tell me."

"I-I've got nothing," Nicholas finally got out.


	181. Rule 544

**Rule 544. Remember, trying to seduce a shipgirl who's already taken is a recipe for disaster.**

It was another night at O'Bannon's Irish Pub. The tables and stools were occupied by a heady mix of off-duty sailors, off-duty shipgirls, and college students, all mixing together for a great time. All of which left O'Bannon scrambling to get everyone's drinks. Finally, though, the stream of orders trailed off, and gave the destroyer the opportunity to slump down on the chair she kept behind the bar.

"Maybe I should hire somebody..." she muttered. She scanned over her bar, and was pleased to find that nothing rowdy was happening. Well, aside from the usual trio of RAF airmen in the corner arguing over a card game, but they always did that. And then her eyes fell on the blonde form of Bismarck - with someone she didn't recognize trying to chat with her.

Frowning, O'Bannon ducked out of the bar and walked over to try and hear the conversation.

"Aw, c'mon, blondie," the guy whined in what he probably thought was a suave tone. "Why you gotta be a bitch like this, huh?"

"I told you," Bismarck said in a clipped tone that O'Bannon recognized as her "I am two seconds from ripping off your arms and beating you to death with them" tone. "I'm engaged." She held up her hand, letting the light glint off the ring on her finger. "See?"

"Man, c'mon, I'm way better than whatever pussy you're engaged to," the guy continued. "C'mon, I'll show you."

With that, he reached out to try and grab Bismarck by the arm. O'Bannon scowled, and reached forward to eject the asshole, when-

"Hey, asshole, get your hands off my fiancee."

Said asshole turned and glared at Erich Hartmann, Bismarck's fiancee, and the older gentleman beside him. O'Bannon grinned, and leaned against the wall. This was going to be so much better than just throwing him out.

"Buddy, listen," the asshole growled. "I'm a Navy lieutenant, so I'm not going to take crap from civvies. You can just sit there and watch as I take this fine piece of ass."

Oh my God this was going to be even better than she thought!

"Did I hear you were in the Navy?" the older man asked, holding out a hand when Erich almost lunged forward.

Asshole shot a confused look at him. "Yeah, so?"

"You work at the base here?"

"What? Get the fuck out, you damn civvie!"

"You know Morgan Munnerlyn?"

O'Bannon had to suppress a giggle as Asshole started turning purple. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?!"

"Do you know Jack Collingwood?"

Wow, talk about a moment of dawning comprehension. Asshole's eyes were like dinner plates, they were so wide. "Admiral Collingwood is my superior!"

"Ah, good," Admiral Hartmann stated. "Admiral Hartmann, Deutsche Marine. I'll have to mention you when I meet him tomorrow."

Asshole froze, looking much like a deer in the headlights. Slowly, he turned back to Bismarck.

"Battleship Bismarck, German Navy," she said, grinning.

His expression still thoroughly poleaxed, he turned to the rest of the bar, taking in over a dozen shipgirls ranging from the submarine Seahorse to the battleship Revenge, as well as Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel all the way up to Captain.

And, to cap it all off, Asshole then stormed off out the door, actually crying!

O'Bannon started clapping, slowly and then picking up speed, the rest of the bar patrons joining in.

"Thank you, thank you," Admiral Hartmann said, bowing repeatedly. "So, why didn't you stop him, Miss O'Bannon?"

"I only noticed him about two minutes before you guys did," O'Bannon answered. "And once you showed up, I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"Regardless, thank you, Admiral," Bismarck said as her fiancee looked her over. "I'd have handled this myself, but I'm afraid if I got physical I likely would have broken him."

"And, also, consider your drinks free on the house," O'Bannon added.

"I-I can't-"

"Trust me, the show was payment enough."


	182. Rule 550

**Rule 550. Hiei is not allowed in the galley under any circumstances.**

"Alert, alert!" Yokosuka's PDA system announced, alongside wailing klaxons and flashing red lights. "Hiei has been spotted in the kitchen, this is not a drill! All personnel are to enact NBC protocols!"

"What's the situation?" Ami Shinkai, a senior member of Yokosuka's Hazardous Organic Materials Disposal Team, asked her second-in-command.

"We're not sure," Jirou Sakaki answered. "Since no one's passed out from the fumes and there isn't some tentacled monstrosity trying to break out of the freezer, we've tentatively classified this as a class 3 event."

"Has Red Castle been alerted?"

"She's on the way, ma'am."

"Good."

The six-man suited team rounded a corner, picking up their seventh member, Akagi. Hey, waste not, want not, right?

"I wonder what Hiei made today," the fleet carrier wondered.

"You should be able to find out soon, Akagi," Ami replied. "Just remember, let us examine it first. We don't want a repeat of the fifth curry incident."

Akagi shuddered at that memory. "So much fire... oh, my poor fuel tanks..."

Finally, they reached the door to the kitchens. Still nothing. That was a good sign. It also made the team incredibly nervous.

"On three," Ami whispered. "One... two... three!"

The team burst in, flamethrowers at ready. There was... nothing. No noxious fumes, no shambling monsters. Hell, nothing was even on fire. Instead, there was Hiei minding a deep fryer. And on one of the islands on a tray...

"Oh, what are these?" Akagi wondered, sniffing the air. "They smell good."

Jirou cautiously walked up and ran a spectrometer over it. Then a geiger counter. And then a full-spectrum miniature MRI.

"It appears to be a deep-fried Twinkie with chocolate glaze," he reported, his tone flat.

"... Really?" Ami asked in disbelief. "No pockets of nasty toxins? No hidden, malevolent sapience?"

"Just a deep-fried chocolate Twinkie," he repeated. "Akagi can confirm, though I wouldn't recommend any human personnel eating this."

"Oh, so it is toxic."

"Nah, it's just a fat and sugar bomb."

Akagi wasn't listening in favor of shouldering her way up to the tray. She picked up one of the... Twinkies, was it? And lifted it up to her mouth and bit off the end.

"Oh my god so much fat and sugar..." she groaned, her face flushing slightly as she popped the whole thing in her mouth and went for another. "So good! Hiei, these are so good!"

"I know, right?" the battleship happily replied. "I figured, hey, I must be doing _something_ wrong if a HAZMAT team is coming in every time I try to cook, so I decided to diversify a bit! Apparently those are a delicacy in the American south."

"You got any more?" Akagi asked, sucking on her fingers. The only reason the HOMD team didn't boggle at the suddenly empty tray was long experience with the carrier's appetite.

"Sorry, no, but I do have some buttermilk fried chicken on the way, and I've got biscuits in the oven."

~o~

"All this time," Admiral Goto chuckled, shaking his head. "And she just needed to make some Southern comfort food."

"The Americans have confirmed that it's the real deal, and very tasty," Ooyodo reported. "Hiei wants to try a Southern-themed night for dinner sometime soon."

"Approved," Goto immediately replied. "A little variety will do our girls good. Plus, we can source most of the ingredients in the Home Islands, if I'm remembering correctly."

"That was Hiei's thought, too," Ooyodo agreed. "She's also planning to-"

Without any warning, both Admiral and shipgirl were struck by an intense burning in their eyes and noses.

"Augh, why?!" Goto howled as he fell backwards on his chair. "What's going on?!"

"C-Capsaicin!" Ooyodo coughed. "S-Somebody is f-filling the v-ventilation s-system with capsaicin!"

Goto didn't reply, too caught up in his own agony. Luckily, the whine of the ventilation system started only moments later, and the burning start to slowly subside. Or, at least, not intensify any further.

"W-What were you saying Hiei was planning to do?" Goto groaned, wishing he had some milk to scrub his eyes with.

"C-Chinese food," Ooyodo groaned, in much the same state. "M-Must've started with Sichuan or something."


	183. Rule 554

**554\. A reminder that the position of Admiral, or any officer ranking, is attained via going through the appropriate schooling in naval colleges and officer schools along with considerable command experience. You do not get those positions via ritualistic trial by combat, stealing the Admiral's official uniform, duels, and etc.**

Admiral Masson sighed contentedly as she leaned back in her custom-made office chair, a box of Belgian truffles in one hand. Ah, this was the life. One nice thing about having a smaller shipgirl fleet was less paperwork. Those poor British, Japanese, and American admirals. Thus, she had time to... indulge in a little laziness every once in a while.

Sadly, her break was cut short by the door to her office crumbling to dust.

 _"Admiral!"_ Provence announced, a fencing foil in one hand and a crazed look in her eyes. _"Too long I have been denied the position and funding I_ _ **rightfully**_ _deserve! And now, I am going to rectify that! Once I become Admiral,_ _ **nothing**_ _will stand in my way! En garde!"_

Masson quirked an eyebrow. Didn't she know that the French Navy didn't utilize Klingon Promotions? "And... how do you expect anyone to follow you when you can't even get your own ducks to do so?"

Provence's eye twitched spasmodically, and a rather unpleasant grimace spread across her face. _"Those traitorous canards_ _ **lacked the will to serve me!**_ _Now, enough stalling, Admiral!"_

"Feh, this hardly seems fair," Masson grumbled as she stood up and reached under her desk for her own weapon.

 _"C'est la guerre, Admiral,"_ Provence retorted, jabbing her blade forward-

Only for it to be caught in the truffle box.

"I don't mean for me. I mean, really," Masson chided, wagging her free index finger. "Interrupting my chocolate time?" Out came not a fencing foil, but a zweihander as long as she was tall, held in one hand. "Talk about piss-poor timing."

~o~

Lorraine and Bretagne glanced at the rather peeved face of Admiral Masson as she dumped Provence, wearing her foil like a necktie, on the table in front of them.

"Keep your sister under control," she ordered. "If I have to handle another one of her episodes, there will be consequences."

"Yes, ma'am," the two battleships flatly chorused.

~o~

She was on the hunt, a predator seeking her prey. The prey was trying something new, not hanging around its usual habitat. But that was no obstacle to an experienced hunter like her. She crept through the ventilation systems towards the scent, and soon she was close, a metal grille the only thing between her and her prize. But before she could ambush and make the kill, she had to confirm the lay of the land.

"Sendai, this is never going to work," Fubuki sighed, trailing behind the light cruiser.

"Nonsense!" Sendai retorted, adjusting the lapels of her stolen uniform. "All Admirals are dressed like this! Therefore, if you dress like this, you are an Admiral!"

"That's the kind of reasoning I'd expect from Kagero or Atago, not you!" Fubuki snapped. "Just... guh, fine. Do what you want. Just leave me out of this."

Inside the vent, Kongo was absolutely _fuming_. How dare that glorified destroyer steal her Admiral's uniform! She'd need to pay.

"Of course. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

Showtime.

Sendai had barely any warning before a very familiar voice rang in her ear.

"Heeeeeey~"

Freezing, Sendai shot a pleading look at Fubuki - only to find that the destroyer had wisely vacated the area.

"Well, I'm right fucked, aren't I," Sendai whimpered, pointedly not looking back at the battleship currently holding her in place.

"Yup~!" came the cheerful reply.

"Um... Be gentle?"

"Nope~!"


	184. Rule 560

**Rule 560. The only things to be thrown in a debate are words, not fists. As of now the American and Japanese destroyers may not debate each other for a period of a month. They are also confined to quarters and their ration of ice cream is to be cut in half for that time period. And finally, all future debates will be moderated by the admiralty.**

"Can't believe I have to work with you three," Asagumo grumbled as she trailed behind Yahagi and her three division-mates.

"What? Why?" Urakaze wondered.

"You're Kageros!" the Asashio-class destroyer barked, jabbing a finger at the clueless Urakaze. "I'm the rival of all Kageros, so working with you three is... is...!"

"You're our rival?" Urakaze asked again, tilting her head as Asagumo tried to vocalize what, exactly, was so wrong with working with her "rivals". "We're rivals? Did you know anything about this, Tanikaze, Isokaze?"

"Nope," Tanikaze replied.

"News to me," Isokaze agreed, not deviating from her scanning of the sky.

"GAH!"

"We're here," Yahagi announced. On the horizon was the looming skyscrapers and mountains of San Diego. All four destroyers shut up in favor of taking in the massive city. Soon, they were rounding the large peninsula, heading into the bay for the military base. And waiting for them on the dock was the towering toned form of New Jersey, four of the nigh-ubiquitous Fletcher-class destroyers flanking her, one standing out solely due to the large green shamrock painted on the funnel of her rigging.

"These the brats?" Jersey grunted as the Japanese shipgirls clambered up.

"Yes. Now, I believe I should report to-"

"Ah, c'mon, that can wait," New Jersey interjected, throwing an arm around the light cruiser's shoulders. "I know a great bar we can go to, where we can talk girl talk. Y'know, ass-kicking, name-taking, and that fine piece of British ass you've claimed."

The Japanese destroyers watched the American drag away their leader with more than a little confusion and consternation, and would have stayed that way had one of the American destroyers not stepped forward.

"USS The Sullivans. I'm the leader of this motley crew you're going to be working with," she announced, putting her hand forward. "And yes, the 'the' his part of my name, though I do answer to 'Sullivans'."

"Uh, hi," Urakaze answered, taking the hand. "We're, uh, we're in your care?"

"Ha!" the American destroyer barked. "Lose the formality, girl. We're a rather informal unit, mostly out of necessity."

"These them?" another destroyer chimed in, munching on a raw lime. "USS Owen, pleased to meet y'all. Lime?"

Urakaze stared at the green fruit thrust at her. "N-No thanks."

"Eh, suit yourself."

"What was that all about?" Tanikaze wondered as Owen wandered back to the rest of the group.

"We've got our... quirks," The Sullivans admitted. "Owen, thanks to her circumnavigation, is just a tad obsessed with limes and such. The better to fight scurvy, or so she'd tell you. Mine's the lucky shamrock I've got painted on my funnel. Tingey sometimes needs to be reminded to speak English instead of Chinese. And Miller-"

"Ah, New Jersey," the destroyer sighed as she stared after the departing battleship. "So elegant, so beautiful. I could watch you all day."

"... Yeah, that."

"Hmph," Isokaze huffed, crossing her arms. "She's nowhere near as elegant as Yamato. Or as powerful."

Miller froze, and slowly turned her head towards Isokaze, her eyes dull and face frozen in a rictus smile. "What did you say?"

"You heard me," Isokaze shot back. "Yamato is a picture of beauty and grace. She has the largest guns, the thickest armor, and the best optical systems in the world. And she has 15,000 tons on any Iowa."

"Uh, Isokaze?" Urakaze said hesitantly. "Maybe you should tone it down a-"

"And the world's best optical system means jack and shit compared to the radar master race," Miller growled in reply. "Also, your armor and shells are shit, so the protection and firepower ends up being the same anyway!"

"Miller, calm down," The Sullivans ordered. "The last thing we need is-"

"Typical of you Western pig-dogs, focusing on tiny nitpicks that give questionable advantages, at best," Isokaze continued, her elegant demeanor now noticeably straining. "Besides, which ship has the completely impenetrable turret face? Right, Yamato."

By now the other destroyers were slowly edging away from their arguing comrades.

"Yeah- well- your stockings look stupid!"

"How dare you! This is the height of fashion, borrowed from Yamato-sama herself!"

"Well, then, Yamato looks stupid, too! Wear your socks normally!"

"At least Yamato is elegant and polite, unlike that brute of a battleship!"

"Hey, who's calling New Jersey a brute?!" a new voice demanded.

All three American destroyers paled as they realized _who_ had joined in. William D. Porter glared at Isokaze, her hand edging towards her two quintuple torpedo mounts.

"Oh ho ho ho ho ho!" Isokaze laughed. "It's you! The Derp Destroyer herself! What're you going to do, leak oil on me?"

Isokaze almost immediately found herself eating her words as Nicholas, De Haven, Strong, and Chevalier popped up from nowhere, flanking Willie D.

"You wanna go, Jap?!" Nicholas demanded.

"I-I, uh..." Isokaze stammered. "Back me up here, guys!"

The destroyer found her divisionmates and their American greeters long gone, and summed up the situation in the only way possible.

"Crap."

"So," William D. Porter growled, cracking her knuckles. "Wanna retract your slander against New Jersey?"

"Never!" Isokaze snarled. "Even if I have to fight alone, I will-"

"You won't fight alone!"

Eyes went wide as the submarine Mingo, destroyers Ellyson, Macom, Heywood L. Edwards, and Richard P. Leary, and destroyer escorts Amick and Atherton formed up in front of Isokaze.

"We will defend the honor of the great Yamato!" the leader, Ellyson, announced.

"Traitors!" Willie D. snapped. "I will show you why my motto is 'I bring bad luck'!"

And with that, the two groups charged at each other.

~o~

"I swear to God, Admiral, I wasn't expecting any of this!" The Sullivans emphasized as she stared at the full-blown _riot_ out on the docks.

"Isokaze idolizes Yamato, but I didn't know she'd start something like that!" Urakaze added.

"Don't worry, girls, none of you are in trouble," Admiral Holloway reassured them. He winced as an explosion sent De Haven flying. "New Jersey, though, she's in trouble. She should've been here to handle this, her and Yahagi both."

Crunching interrupted what promised to be an epic tirade. All eyes turned on Asagumo, who looked entirely unrepentant as she munched on a large bucket of popcorn. "What? This is entertaining."


	185. Rule 564

**Rule 564. The issuance of grenades for use on combat missions is no longer allowed.**

O'Bannon sighed explosively. This blew. At first she'd thought getting reunited with her old Task Group 36.1 mates would be fun. Then she met them. Honolulu kept giggling about Nagato's recent transfer, and not in a fun way. St. Louis spent more time fussing over Helena than actually doing her job, and the other light cruiser was clearly approaching "thunderously pissed off" at flank speed. Nicholas kept fretting about that ad-hoc Desron she'd put together and was now leaving behind, and due to some fuckup in the summoning Jenkins had been brought back as a fresh-faced rookie instead of the seasoned veteran she was supposed to be.

At least Radford was normal, even if the two of them kept having to herd Jenkins.

Right now she and Jenkins were on the lookout for submarines. Privately, O'Bannon didn't think submarines were the issue. Aircraft, or surface ships? Yeah, that'd be a problem. And so, she had brought a little insurance that she'd been planning to use for a while now.

The Fletcher accelerated a bit, coming up next to Jenkins. "See anything, kid?"

"Nope!" her sister cheerfully replied. "Nothing on radar or sonar!"

O'Bannon frowned. "What about the Mark 1 eyeball?"

Jenkins tilted her head in confusion. "The what?"

The Irish girl bit back a curse, and scanned the horizon in Jenkins' search sector.

"Come on, come on..." she muttered to herself, before reaching out, grabbing Jenkins by the sleeve, and pulling her away.

"Ah, sis, what are you-!" Jenkins started to protest before a salvo of heavy shells kicked up a massive plume of water next to her.

"Yup," O'Bannon confirmed as Jenkins stared, wide-eyed. "That's a battleship, all right. And I'd bet a year's worth of potatoes that there's a light force looking to pincer us. Jenkins, go meet up with the rest of the task group, let them know there's enemies to fight."

"W-What about you, O'Bannon?" Jenkins wondered.

The smile she received in return was... less than comforting.

"I've got a battleship to kill."

~o~

Battleship RE-3251 nearly fell over laughing as she saw one of the destroyers she was bearing down on charge at her. Thanks to the ancestral memory all Abyssals got, she knew this one. This was the potato girl. And looking closer, she seemed to have a ton of the spuds attached to belts slung over her torso.

Ah well. Might as well indulge her. Her guns swung out and fired downrange.

The Abyssal's smile didn't waver as the destroyer passed the 20,000-yard mark. It turned into an outright frown at 15,000, and then a full-on angry grimace at 10,000.

[Why... won't... you... die!] she growled.

Still the destroyer continued her impossible run until she was barely a few hundred yards away, at which point she unclipped a potato from one of her belts and threw at the battleship. By now thoroughly eager to drill her obvious superiority into the stupid tin can's head, RE-3251 simply reached out and caught the spud.

[Nice try,] she grinned toothily. [But you're going to have to do better than that to-]

And then the "potato" exploded.

~o~

O'Bannon grinned as the Abyssal battleship was engulfed in fire and smoke. Just as she thought; so used were the Abyssals to her chucking potatoes that the possibility of hand grenades never occurred to them. And now they were going to pay for it.

The smoke cleared, and O'Bannon's jaw dropped as it revealed a scorched, pissed-off, and very much alive Re-class battleship. That she was a few hundred yards away from. She immediately juked left and launched her torpedoes, and had the satisfaction of most of the shells missing her and the torpedoes finding their mark.

Sadly, most is not all. One shell, a secondary HE round, clipped one of her grenade belts, knocking the pin off one of her grenades. The destroyer only had time to grab the belt and start flinging it away before it went off, setting off the other grenades on the belt in a very impressive explosion. And O'Bannon... well, she wasn't armored out the wazoo like the Re.

"Ow..." O'Bannon groaned, cradling the gaping chunk torn out of her side with her left hand, her right a bleeding stump. At least the Re was sinking into the ocean. "Maybe the grenade thing isn't such a good idea..."

"O-O'Bannon...?"

Jenkins took in the sight of O'Bannon - her arm gone, a chunk torn out of her side, blood and burns dotting her skin - and screamed her head off.

"AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH!"

"Calm down, Jenkins, I'm not gonna die anytime soon!" O'Bannon tried to reassure her sister.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!"

"Fuck, this is gonna take forever..."

"AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHH!"


	186. Rule 571

**Rule 571. Do not throw the destroyers at the Abyssals.**

William D. Porter steamed at flank speed towards the battle, her sisters at her side. And around them, a powerful force of two battleships, three light cruisers, and another six destroyers.

"I see them!" Pasadena reported.

"Good!" Missouri barked. "Prepare for a surface engagement!"

Guns were slung out and torpedoes checked across the task force, but Willie D. didn't need to. She knew her equipment would work.

"Miss Iowa!" she called out as she steamed up to the embattled battleship. "I'm here to-!"

"Perfect!" Iowa interrupted by grabbing Willie by the waist and lifting her above her head. "Say hello to my little friend, motherfucker!"

And with that, Iowa threw Willie D. at the cluster of four Ta-class battleships that had been attacking her.

[Run!] one of them shrieked as they saw the ballistic tin can incoming.

[It's the Bringer of Bad Luck!] another wailed.

"I'll show you bad luck!" Willie snarled, firing her 5" guns and dropping torpedoes. One 5" shell snuck into a secondary magazine, which blew and set off the main magazine, turning the battleship into chunky salsa. Another was clonked on the head by a depth charge released by an overzealous fairy - and then got her feet blown off when it hit the water and exploded. The other two merely took torpedoes to the face.

And all in the time it took Willie to land on the water.

Behind her, a Re-class battleship aimed the guns on its tail at her - and froze as Willie nailed her with a blazing glare.

"Don't. Even. Think about it," she growled.

The Re audibly gulped and bolted.

~o~

"Shit!" Tenryuu barked as an 8" shell threw up water next to her. This was the last time she and Desdiv 6 helped Yuubari with one of her experiments. This was the third time they'd run into a powerful Abyssal force. "Please tell me _somebody_ has a plan!"

"I have one!" Yuubari piped up.

For a moment, Tenryuu was tempted to say no - Yuubari's reputation as a mad scientist was by now well-known and well-earned - but with shells landing around them she didn't see any option. "Try it!"

The light cruiser had expected some exotic weapon, or maybe one of those robots Yuubari was so fond of. She did _not_ expect Yuubari to grab Inazuma by the ankle and prepare to throw her.

"Inazuma! I choose you!" she shouted, before throwing the destroyer at the oncoming Abyssals.

Well, attempted to throw. The destroyer didn't go very far before falling into the water.

Tenryuu immediately grabbed the smaller light cruiser by the collar and dragged her close.

"That's. Not. Helping," she growled.

~o~

Admiral Collingwood hummed as he sipped at his tea. Ah, the simple joys of life. You learned to appreciate them, dealing with shipgirls.

"Woo-hoo!"

Collingwood glanced out the window to the sight of Campbelltown flying by on a large rocket that looked perfectly sized for a battleship's catapults.

Yessirree, the simply joys of life were an absolute goddamn _necessity._


	187. Rule 572

**572a. Congratulations, Fubuki! You're considered the mother of all WWII-era destroyers!**

"Okay, so. Momboats," Miyuki stated, tapping a piece of paper with her pen. "More specifically, the actual moms. The ones everyone else can trace their lineage to."

"Definitely Dreadnought," Sazanami pointed out. "They are called _dreadnought_ battleships, after all."

"We should probably include Invincible, too, then," Miyuki decided, scribbling down the two names. "Good thing neither have been summoned. And for carriers..."

"Langley, Hosho, and Argus," Sazanami immediately rattled off.

"Right, right. I should talk to Yorktown about what Langley likes..."

"Olympic's probably a better idea. He would know both Argus and Langley."

"Good idea. Cruisers?"

For once, Sazanami had to think about that one. "Hard to say..." she muttered. "Hawkins is probably our best bet. She was the template for the Washington limits."

"Good enough," Miyuki stated. "And now destroyers."

Once again, Sazanami was silent. Unlike before, though, after several minutes it became clear that she was outright stumped.

"Seriously?" Miyuki demanded.

"Hey, I don't know everything!" her sister snapped, grabbing her phone out of her pocket. "Lemme see what Google has to say..."

Miyuki watched, fascinated, as Sazanami's face went from bored to incredulous to lecherous and then to excited in the span of maybe five seconds.

"Ohohohoho, it seems my dear older sister is a MILF!" Sazanami crowed. "Ha! I'm so gonna use this!"

"Who in the world are you- no." Miyuki frantically shook her head, trying to get the mental image out. "Nononononononono, you're not talking about-"

~o~

Fubuki sighed as she stacked up the papers she'd been looking over and glanced at the clock. Oh, time for lunch. Hiei was making lunch today, and she didn't want to miss that. The destroyer quickly made her way out of her office and down the halls to the mess. And she didn't get far before the weirdness started.

"Mother," Asashio politely greeted, bowing her head.

"Hi Mom!" Kagerou cheerfully called out, waving to get her attention.

"Hello, Mum," Yuugumo stated as she passed, nose still deep within her iPhone.

"Hail, my honorable Matriarch," Hatsuharu intoned, bowing even deeper than Asashio.

"Um... mother?" Akizuki said cautiously as she passed by.

By the time Fubuki reached the cafeteria, her head was nearly spinning. Why in the blue hell were all the destroyers calling her "Mama"?! Her confusion only deepened further when she reached the mess, opened the door, and was confronted with just about every destroyer in the Japanese Navy younger than Akatsuki, standing next to a large cake and underneath a banner that shouted "Happy Mother's Day, Fubuki!"

"Mommy!" Shiratsuyu cried out as she dove out of the crowd and glomped onto Fubuki.

Fubuki could only gape at the banner, an odd sound creeping out from her mouth.

"B-b-b-bubba-bobba-hob-hobba-wah-wah..."

"I don't get it..." Shimakaze muttered.

"We'll explain when you're older," Miyuki stated, patting her on the back.

"So, wait, if Fubuki's the mother of all destroyers, what does that make me?" Mutsuki wondered.

"The spinster aunt."

"Hey!"

The gathered destroyers started shuffling uncomfortably in place as Fubuki still didn't move or say anything other than that odd sound.

"B-b-b-bubba-bobba-hob-hobba-wah-wah..."

Finally, Fubuki was broken out of her daze by a hand tugging at her sleeve. She looked down to see Akatsuki giving her the best puppy-dog eyes she'd ever seen.

"Mama...?" she breathed in that tone that can be either very adorable or very creepy.

"Urk!"

Fubuki lurched, clutching at her heart, and slumped to her knees.

"M-Mama?" she heard Akatsuki ask. "D-Do you not want your present?"

Fubuki didn't respond at first, merely tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. And then her eyes widened, her pupils dilated, and she opened her mouth for one. Simple. Scream.

"I'M TO YOUNG TO BE A MOTHER OF 81!"

~o~

"Hmm..." Tenryuu hummed as she looked at the feed Naka had set up and was even now broadcasting worldwide. "Think we should tell her that it's closer to mother of a thousand?"

"I'm surprised you're taking this so well, Tenryuu," Naka pointed out.

"Eh, I'm fine with Fubuki being their mom," the light cruiser responded. "Just means I get to be the cool aunt or big sister that spoils them rotten."

"And... how's Tatsuta taking this?"

~o~

"SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT!"

~o~

"Trust me," Tenryuu grimaced. "You don't want to know."


	188. Rule 577

**577: Due to the unusual nature of the Kanmusu, attempting to refer to them by the age of their hulls is no longer allowed. The Iowa Sisters did not take kindly to it, and the only reason the HMS Victory and the USS Constitution haven't gotten involved yet is because no one is yet stupid enough to say it to their face.**

"Hey, Granny!"

Wisconsin groaned and cradled her head in her hands as she heard the teenagers dig their own graves. Sitting around her, Iowa, New Jersey, and Missouri all paused in their consumption of the massive pile of burgers they'd been attacking.

"What are you doing?!" one of the boys hissed. "Those are the Iowa sisters!"

"Yeah, and they're all over 80!" the one who'd started the whole thing chortled. "That makes them grannies! I'm surprised their tits aren't sagging!"

The table splintered under their combined grip, the burger held in New Jersey's hand being reduced to the approximate consistency of a melted smoothie.

"And how much botox do you think they use to get rid of the wrinkles?" another one of the teenagers jeered.

Sighing, Wisconsin stood up and walked over to their table.

"How old are you guys?" she asked.

"What?" one of the teenagers said, gaping like a landed fish.

"I said, how old are you guys?"

"We're-We're seventeen, ma'am," the one who'd tried to shut up his friends stammered.

"Oh, good," Wisconsin said sweetly. "Then you're all old enough to be eligible for Darwin Awards."

The polite one paled, while his buddies remained clueless and shivering as the temperature dropped.

"C'mon, let's get out of here," Wisconsin said, grabbing the polite teen's hand and rushing out the door of the McDonald's they'd been in.

No sooner had they exited the building than the screams started.

"And that's why you never mention a lady's age," Wisconsin nodded sagely as a table went flying out a window.

"I-I can see that," he stammered.

The cute cashier girl ran screaming out the door, followed by one of the teenagers, his head covered in ketchup. He didn't get very far before a well-muscled arm grabbed him by the leg and dragged him back inside, despite his terrified screams and attempts to grip the ground.

"S-Shouldn't we go help them?"

"Eh, I was joking about the Darwin Award thing. New Jersey and Missouri know better than to actually kill someone, and they'll keep Iowa in line."

There was a sound of snapping bone, followed by another scream.

"I hope."


	189. Rule 581

**581\. Do not cook with the fuel oil Hayasui carts around unless you want to explain to Kongo why the kitchen burned down.**

Hiei hummed to herself as she cut up and breaded chickens with speed and efficiency that would put most human chefs to shame. Being able to lift massive bowls full of a hundred chickens and their breading helped.

With the chickens done, she began preparing the fryers, only to find a problem when she went to get oil.

"Is this it?" she grumbled as she shook a gallon-sized container, causing the half-inch of oil remaining to slosh around the bottom. "This isn't nearly enough. But where am I going to get this much oil on such short notice?"

"Did someone say oil?"

Hiei glanced towards the door to see Hayasui leaning against the frame, her usual oil container slung across her back.

"Ah, yes, perfect!" Hiei chirped. "I need about..." She squinted at the fryers, eyeballing their volume. "25 gallons of oil?"

"25 gallons, huh?" the fleet oiler mused. "Give me five minutes, I'll be right back!"

Hayasui darted out the door, and came back exactly five minutes later (Hiei checked) lugging a standard 55-gallon steel oil drum.

"Lemme just fill it up halfway and you're good to go." The fleet oiler unslung her oil drum, pulled out a hose, and flicked a switch, prompting a small engine to run. After a few minutes, she plugged the hose into the drum, and a few minutes after uncoupled the hose and presented the barrel to Hiei. "Tada! 25 gallons of oil, as requested."

"Thanks, Hayasui!" Hiei chirped as she grabbed the barrel.

"No problem," the oiler responded, throwing a lazy salute before turning to leave. "See ya!"

Hiei, for her part, turned back to the fryers, upending the drum over one of them. Nothing happened. She gave it a shake. Still nothing. Shifting position, she gazed into the drum - just in time for a large drop of Bunker-C to hit her in the eye.

"Ack!" she yelped, trying to wipe away the gunk and hold the barrel at the same time. Naturally, she failed to do either, and the drum fell out of her grip and crashed onto her head. Drum met conning tower armor, and while the impact rang Hiei's head like a gong, the thin steel of the drum lost overall. It cracked open, gelatinous bunker oil spreading everywhere.

Including to the oven where she was baking biscuits. Hopefully it wouldn't catch fire.

*FWOOSH!*

Never mind.

~o~

It was Kongo who noticed the fire first. She dashed in, finding the oven already ablaze, and the fire threatening to leap to other flammable surfaces. Namely, the oil-covered Hiei still lying insensate on the floor. Lacking any means to combat oil fires, Kongo did the one thing she could: she hauled Hiei off the floor, carried her out, and, once she was in the hallway, breathed in as much as she could and-

"FIRE!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.

After crews were sent to put out the fire and replace the glass Kongo's scream had shattered, it came time to wake up Hiei and find out what the hell went wrong this time.

"Hiei..." Hayasui groaned, clapping her hand to her face at the explanation. "You don't use bunker oil for cooking! I thought you wanted a drink!"

"I'm sorry..." the battleship whimpered.

Both Kongo and Goto flinched at just how _miserable_ Hiei looked. "Why don't you have Mamiya supervise next time, okay?" the Admiral suggested.

"Admiral," Hayasui deadpanned. "I'm pretty sure that's outlawed by the Geneva Conventions."

Goto frowned, even as Kongo suppressed a snort of laughter. "Well, I can't just ban her from cooking," Goto retorted. "She either tries anyway or goes depressed."

"I'm the Emperor's ship..." the shipgirl in question moaned, rocking back and forth in her chair. "I shouldn't be this much of a fuckup in the kitchen..."

Goto waved his arms at Hiei, his face screaming "See what I mean?"

An awkward silence fell over the group, broken after a few minutes by one of the firefighters poking his head in.

"Ah, Admiral?" he began. "They've begun repairing the kitchen, but they say it'll take at least a week. Maybe more."

Goto, Kongo, and Hayasui all blanched at that. A week, with no kitchen!? There'd be riots in the streets!

"Oh no! What are we going to do, desu?!" Kongo wailed.

"I... I don't know," Goto admitted.

"I've got this!"

All eyes turned to Hiei.

"What?"

"I've got this!" Hiei continued, fire and determination alighting in her eyes. "At dinner, get every shipgirl onto the lawns! I'm cooking!"

"Hiei-" Kongo began.

"Ah!" Hiei interrupted, putting a finger to her older sister's mouth. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." And with that, she swept out of the room.

There was another awkward silence, this time broken by Kongo. "Did anyone else get a shiver of existential dread run down their spine?"

"Yes."

"Oh, so that's what that was."

"Good," she sighed. "Than it's not just me."


	190. Rule 586

**Rule 586. Despite evidence to the contrary, William D. Porter is not the anti-Iowa.**

"Get back here you fucking brats!" Iowa howled as she chased after Taffy 3's destroyers, covered in an unidentifiable green substance.

"Nyah, gotta catch us first, Granny!" Johnston taunted, only to yelp as Iowa smoothly uprooted a tree and hurled it at them.

"You had to go and use the Granny comment!" Hoel complained as they all hastily changed direction. "Now she's not gonna stop until we run out of fuel!"

"Don't worry!" Johnston replied, her grin not faltering in the least. "I have a plan!"

"Why does that not make me feel any better?" Hoel groaned.

"So, what is this plan?" Heermann asked.

"Let's just say I haven't been choosing our route at random," the Fletcher cryptically answered.

Three turns, two trees, and an old Jeep later, Johnston spotted her target.

"Ha ha!" she crowed as she grabbed William D. Porter and spun her around to face Iowa. "Behold, the anti-Iowa!"

Iowa froze. Willie D. froze. Heermann and Hoel froze. In fact, the whole scene ground to a halt aside from the call of a seagull overhead as everyone involved took it in.

"What."

Johnston turned to Hoel and grinned. "Have you seen how many times this girl has scared Iowa off? Look, she's shaking already!"

Indeed, Iowa was shaking, though Hoel couldn't tell if it was from anger or fear. Quite frankly, she was more worried about the glint coming from under William D. Porter's glasses.

Slowly, Willie D. took a step forward - and then tripped on nothing. She fell forward, in the process her left heel coming up and clonking Johnston in the jaw.

"Ah, s-so sorry, Johnston," she stammered, turning around to speak to her sister. "I just-"

As she turned around, her foot scraped against Johnston's shin before stomping down on her foot, prompting the latter to howl and start jumping up and down while clutching the hurt digit.

"Ah, oh no!" Willie D. cried out, reaching out to help Johnston. Instead, she simply tripped on nothing again, the two destroyers coming down in a tangle of limbs, their foreheads crashing together.

"Owowowowow..." Willie D. groaned, rubbing her forehead. "I just don't know what went wrong..." She started, gaping at the unconscious Johnston below her. "Ah! Shoot!"

The sound of slow clapping drew William D. Porter's gaze to Iowa. The battleship looked thoroughly impressed. "Shit, kid, that was genuinely one of the most impressive fucking things I've ever seen."

Willie D.'s face morphed from the hapless clutz to the rather confident badass she'd been turning into the past few months. "Well, I couldn't let a known troublemaker like Johnston use me like that." She glanced around. "Speaking of which, where are Hoel and Heermann?"

"Son of a fuck!" Iowa shouted as she realized the two destroyers had used Johnston's beatdown to de-ass the area. "We'll talk later, okay? I need to buy you a drink!" And with that, she went tearing off in search of the destroyers again.

Willie shook her head, a bemused smile on her face. That smile faded when she looked down at Johnston's prone form and realized she needed to do something about that.

"You owe me big time, sis," she groaned as she hefted her sister up.


	191. Rule 587

**Rule 587. Equilibrium is hereby added to the list of banned movies. We don't want a repeat of the multiple gun kata reenactments with 5 inch guns.**

"Wow..." Tenryuu breathed as she watched the action on screen.

"Yeah, amazing, isn't it?" Nagara muttered around a mouthful of popcorn. "You really should watch more action movies, Tenryuu. They'd be right up your alley."

"I want to, but Tatsuta and Hibiki keep stopping me," she grumbled. "Ever since that incident after I played that Metal Gear game. I mean, really, I'm not that impressionable."

"Mm..."

At that point, the action picked up again and the two light cruisers went back to oohing and aahing over the screen.

~o~

Tenryuu whistled a jaunty tune as she headed down to gunnery practice. However, as she did so, she saw another kanmusu heading the other way: Kiso. The two had rarely interacted; the first time they had met, Tenryuu had accused Kiso of ripping off her style, while Kiso had retorted with "It's not who did it first, it's who did it _better_." It took all of their sisters to pry the two off of each other, and they hadn't spoken since.

The two passed without saying anything, but something else _did_ pass between them. Some... understanding. Tenryuu put it out of her mind, and went to the firing range to test out some of the stuff she'd seen in that movie. Except that feeling kept staying in the back of her mind...

If Tatsuta and Desdiv 6 thought it odd that Tenryuu started wearing her rigging 24/7 after that day, they didn't say anything. As it was, it was a couple of days before something happened.

Tenryuu was eating lunch at the mess when she felt a gun barrel press to her head.

"There can be only one," Kiso intoned gravely. "Any last words?"

"Not really," Tenryuu glibly remarked, before ducking down and swinging up one of her 5.5" guns, specially modified by Yuubari to be carried by hand.

Kiso dodged to the side as the gun went off, the inert practice shell smacking into the wall. Her own 5.5" gun barked, turning the bench Tenryuu had been sitting on to splinters. Both light cruisers swung their guns up to each other's forehead simultaneously, the action taking a pause to let everyone else in the mess scream and run out.

"Heh, not bad," Tenryuu grinned.

"That's my line," Kiso retorted. "Where did you even learn this?"

"Equilibrium. You?"

"Same."

Their smiles held for a few seconds before dropping, both girls almost immediately trying to simultaneously fire their guns and knock their opponent's out of the way. It worked. Kiso raised her gun arm, only to have it batted away. Tenryuu did the same, to the same result. Punches, and then kicks, were traded back and forth, the two light cruisers skidding their feet in a circle barely six feet wide as they tried to line their guns up or, failing that, simply knock it out of the other's hand. What few shipgirls hadn't already fled watched in amazement, money starting to trade hands as everyone wondered who would win.

Finally, something happened. Tenryuu turned to the left to evade another 5.5" shot, and as she spun back Kiso saw her opponent's hand on the sheathe to her sword. Sadly, she didn't see what was happening until Tenryuu was putting her body weight into the turn, and thus was unable to react as her opponent shot her sword out of its sheathe, the handle hitting Kiso dead on the forehead. Dazed, she couldn't react to Tenryuu grabbing her sword, slamming her to the ground with the blade at her neck and the 5.5" gun pressed to her forehead.

"Bang," Tenryuu grinned. "I win."

Kiso scowled as the crowd burst into either pained groans or victorious cheers. "That was cheating, using your sword like that," she grumbled.

"And that is why you still need training in the art of being a total fucking badass," Tenryuu retorted, standing up, glancing around - and then doing a _magnificent_ double-take at the devastation they'd left behind. "What the hell?!"

Plaster crumbled from the walls around the numerous shell holes left by the practice rounds. Inert though they were, they still packed quite a bit of kinetic energy. Cooking staff were peeking warily out from behind the counter. Quite a few benches and tables were so many splinters on the floor. And standing in the door, taking it all in with a beatific smile, was Ooyodo.

"I think we might have overdone it," Tenryuu whimpered.

~o~

"Equilibrium?" USS Wright, Admiral Holloway's current - and hopefully last - secretary ship repeated. "Oh, no, we haven't shown that at movie night. Why?"

 _"Well, Tenryuu and Kiso saw it, and they just had a gun-kata duel in the mess. It's gonna take ages to clean up, and Ashigara's gonna be mad at me for all the extra work her boyfriend has to do!"_ Ooyodo groaned. _"Look, I know how many chuuni-shipgirls you've got. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up."_

"No problem, we'll take it off the list for rotation," Wright noted. "Though... considering how many shipgirls have computers and tablets..."

Her eyes widened as her mind jumped to the worst-case scenario.

"Shit! Where's White Plains?!"


	192. Rule 588

**Rule 588. Imuya, Akashi, and Yamato are never allowed to go fishing again.**

"Sorry, Imuya, I've got paperwork to do."

"I'm... not allowed to go outside for another two weeks."

"AAAAHHHHHH!"

"Huh, that could be fu- SQUIRREL!"

"Ah!~ Admiral, harder, faster~!"

Imuya shuddered as she slowly closed the door to Goto's office. That was far more than she needed to know about Kongo's sex life.

Pushing the scene she'd stumbled upon out of her mind, she slowly meandered her way over to Akashi's workshop. She just wanted to go fishing with someone! Was that too much to ask?! Though, in hindsight, the reaction from Shinano was probably her fault.

Sighing, she opened the door to the workshop to find Akashi and Yamato discussing... something.

"Hmm. Good thing you've got some reserve buoyancy, Yamato. Some of the destroyer girls I meet with - well, let's just say they get upset when they learn they have to cough up a torpedo or gun mount."

"I must confess, I, Yamato, find the focus on weight of many of my comrades to be perplexing."

"Yeah, well, most of us weren't constructed as a giant middle finger to arms limitations."

"Am I interrupting anything?" Imuya spoke up.

Akashi and Yamato glanced at each other before the former shrugged. "Nah, just a consultation," the repair ship replied, rolling up the blueprints she'd been holding. "Anyway, what's up, Imuya?"

"Either of you want to go fishing?" Imuya asked. "Special sub-style fishing, I mean."

"I, Yamato, will gladly go with you," the battleship immediately answered. "I confess that I, Yamato, have been going a little stir-crazy the last couple of weeks."

Imuya nodded. Considering the Abyssals had shattered a good chunk of their standing mobile forces hitting San Diego a few weeks back, that wasn't all that surprising.

"Ah, what the hell, I'll come with you guys," Akashi said with a grin. "Unless something silly happens again, I should be free for a few hours, at least."

All three shipgirls blinked, then glanced around. Luckily, no one tried to break down the door for emergency repairs.

"Sure hope we didn't jinx it..." Imuya muttered.

~o~

Sub-fishing, as it turned out, was very different from regular fishing. As soon as they'd gotten to the docks, Imuya had pressed several nets into Akashi's hands and tied a semi-submerged boat to one of Yamato's belt loops. Only then had they headed out to sea.

Fishing consisted of Imuya diving, bringing fish to the surface, and having Yamato and Akashi net the fish and put them in the boat for safekeeping.

"Yes!" Yamato crowed as she wrapped up the yellowfin tuna Imuya had just pushed up. "Sushi!"

"Don't eat it just yet, Yamato," Akashi cautioned as she waited for Imuya to surface.

"I know, I know," the battleship sighed. "Ah well, I, Yamato, will go put it in with the rest."

Akashi nodded, and turned back out to sea as Yamato steamed back to the boat. But instead of the splash of a fish going into the water, she heard a very large splash, a yelp of surprise, and then nothing.

"Yamato?" she asked, turning around to find the boat and Yamato gone, only bubbles remaining. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

"Akashi!" Imuya shouted as she surfaced. "What's wrong?"

"Yamato! Boat! Gone!" she babbled, pointing her finger at the spot of ocean where the bubbles were - just as the bubbles vanished. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Imuya grit her teeth, and then dove underwater, leaving Akashi hyperventilating on the surface. Even after she got her breathing under control, she was unable to stop herself from frantically looking every which way, her mind inventing all manner of horrible things that could burst out of the sea to attack her.

So, when another large plume of water shot up, she had to try extremely hard not to scream again.

"Don't worry, it's just me," Imuya grumbled, her swimsuit askew and angry red welts dotting her arms. Leaning on her shoulder was Yamato, who looked like a drowned rat and was holding something in her right hand. "C'mon, help me with Yamato. She swallowed a lot of water, and-"

"Hi-yah!" Akashi barked, her fist slamming into Yamato's solar plexus. The battleship twitched, and then lurched over, vomiting seawater.

"T-Thanks..." she moaned, wheezing as she gulped in air. "Colossal squid grabbed me, dragged me under."

"One joke about hentai and seeing where this is going, and I shove a torpedo up your ass," Imuya added.

"Phrasing!"

"A-Anyway, Imuya saved me. Lost the fish, but..."

Her strength returning, Yamato lifted up what she'd been holding, revealing it to be the squid in question.

"Anyone up for calamari?"


	193. Rule 593

**Rule 593. Girls are reminded that all costumes for the annual Halloween run must be appropriate.  
**  
"Come in," Goto announced as someone knocked on his door.

The door opened, and Goto hastily scribbled one last note on the paperwork he was doing before looking up. "How can I-"

Whatever he was going to say was stopped dead in its tracks as he was confronted with possibly the briefest top he'd ever seen. Basically, just two strips of plastic covering the nipples connected at the back.

"No," he said to Iku.

"Oh come on!" the submarine protested, her actions causing some... interesting effects. "It's myth-accurate! And it doesn't actually show anything!"

"Look, I'm not going to veto a mermaid costume, but put on something a little more sensible than that!" Goto retorted. "A bikini top, at the very least."

A lecherous grin spread across Iku's face.

"A _normal_ bikini top, by the way."

Only to vanish just as quickly.

"But-!"

"No buts, Iku. Besides, the tail's fine, so it's not much of a hardship. Now shoo. I have work to do."

~o~

"No."

"Aww, but Admiral!" Yakumo protested. "I have to get in touch with my cultural heritage!"

Goto sighed. "That's fine, but not like this!"

Yakumo glanced down at the painstakingly historically accurate SS uniform she was wearing. "What's wrong with this?"

Goto gaped for a moment before rapidly shaking his head. "No, I am not dealing with this. Change your costume, and go talk to Yuu about the Nazis. I suspect that'll clear up a lot of things. Now shoo. I have work to do."

~o~

"No."

"Oh, come on, Admiral!" Sendai protested. "I like Kasumi as a character, alright? And Iku's gonna be walking around in a bikini top! Can't we work this out?"

"You and I both know that's a crock of steaming bullshit, Sendai," Goto retorted, looking over her costume again. The blue short-sleeved kimono top, the blue armor plates on her forearms and shins, the white thigh-highs - and, of course, the split-skirt that demonstrated that the light cruiser wasn't wearing any underwear. "I'm sure you play Dead or Alive for the story, too."

Sendai grimaced, unable to deny the implication.

"Look, there are plenty of sensibly dressed female ninjas out there," Goto continued. "Pick one, and switch costumes. And send the next girl in on the way out, okay?"

~o~

"Kiyoshimo, no."

"Kiyoshimo, yes!"

*CRUNCH!*

Goto sighed. "Somebody get Akashi in here, please. We found Musashi's rigging."

~o~

"Are you kidding me?" Goto deadpanned.

"No?" Shimakaze replied, adjusting the cardboard tail she'd glued to the bottom of the hoodie she wore. "I don't see what the problem is."

Knowing Shimakaze, she likely didn't realize why dressing up as a Re-class battleship for Halloween was a bad idea.

"Just... change, please."

~o~

"The Grey Ghost," Goto deadpanned.

"Yup!" Atago chirped, waving around the cardboard flight deck taped to her arm.

"You do realize you're the third shipgirl I've seen today dressed as Enterprise?"

"Aww... I'll go change."

As Atago left, Goto let out a sigh of relief at a shipgirl that _didn't_ need to be browbeaten into changing their costume.

A glance out his door confirmed that there was no one else waiting to ask about their costumes. Now, hopefully he could get some peace and quiet.

Or, maybe not.

"Hello, Admiral," Kongo purred as she strutted up to him. He had to admit, she looked good with glasses and her hair in those pigtails, and that plugsuit really showed off her curves.

"I've heard what a stressful day you've had," she continued, circling around him. "Let me make it all better."

"Kongo, please, I have no energy to-" Goto began before her hands alighted on his shoulders and began rubbing. "Ooooohhhhh..."

"My word, you're tense. Just relax and let Kongo do all the work."

"Yes, ma'am..."


	194. Rule 603

**Rule 603: RCN shipgirls are reminded not to mention the joys of Maple Syrup to Akagi.**

"This bites..." HMCS Huron grumbled. "We're in the ass-end of the Pacific coast and everyone else gets to have fun blowing up submarines."

"I'm just glad we weren't scrapped," Nootka countered.

After the incident with Thunder Child a while back, the two Canadian destroyers had been sent West to Vancouver to keep them out of the Canadian Admiralty's hair. Most of their time had been spent helping escort convoys on the last leg of the journey from Anchorage to Seattle, Vancouver, or Tacoma. Very boring.

And right now, they were awaiting their next assignment.

"God, I wonder how much I can sleep on this sortie," Huron continued in that disgruntled tone.

Nootka just sighed. This grumpy Huron was not fun.

Finally, the door to the office they'd been waiting outside swung open, allowing the fresh-faced, twenty-something captain to poke his head out. "Here are your orders," he said, handing them both a sheaf of papers. "You're going to Japan."

Both tin cans immediately perked up at that.

"Finally, something interesting!" Huron whooped. "What're we doing?"

"Teaching ASW."

~o~

A few weeks later found the two Canadians standing in line for lunch, licking their chops at Hiei cooking up more of that Southern comfort food she was so good at.

"Oh, cornmeal pancakes!" Nootka said, plucking a stack from the counter.

"I'd say I hope they have actual maple syrup, but I'm not going to hold my breath," Huron added as she took her own cakes.

Privately, Nootka agreed with her sister. Damn Americans, spoiling everyone on maple syrup!

Grabbing the rest of their food, the Canadians set about to a much harder task: finding an open space to sit at. The only spaces available were next to a pair of carrier girls Nootka and Huron didn't recognize. Hey, there were hundreds of shipgirls at Yokosuka, and they hadn't even been there a month!

"Hello," one of the carriers drawled as they sat down.

"Hello yourself," Huron replied, both destroyers pulling out their personal glass bottles of maple syrup.

"I confess, I don't recognize the two of you," the first shipgirl continued. "What are your-"

"Hey, what's in the bottles?" the other carrier asked, her cheeks full of food.

"Oh, this?" Nootka wondered, holding up the bottle. "Maple syrup. Actual maple syrup, not the sugar water you guys use."

"Oh, can I try some?" the gluttonous carrier asked.

"Sure."

"Anyway," the first carrier girl continued as the other liberally doused her hotcakes in syrup. "I'm Kaga, and this is Akagi."

"Nice to meeeeeeet... you..." Nootka trailed off as she realized who she was talking to. Any further response was cut off by Akagi suddenly hugging herself and moaning in pleasure.

Kaga's eyes widened, taking in her half-sister's flushed countenance. "Oh shit. It's a foodgasm."

"We are so dead," Huron groaned.

~o~

The Prime Minister stood in his office in Ottawa, looking west. He had just felt a great disturbance, as if a million maple trees had cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

"Sir," a suited agent announced as he entered the office. "We have news. Akagi has learned of maple syrup."

The Prime Minister's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. "Lock down the reserve, the best security we have. Bring the Americans in if you have to."

"This is gonna get ugly."


	195. Rule 607

**Rule 607. Bully Tenryuu at your own peril. Tatsuta might tease her sister, but serious bullying of Tenryuu will leave you at her mercy.**

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

Tatsuta looked up from the very steamy romance novel she'd been reading to find her sister Tenryuu looking equally steamed. With anger. Get your minds out of the damn gutters, Jesus.

Anyway, what would normally be just a semi-random outburst gained new dimensions when Tenryuu put her fist through the nearest wall. Tatsuta sighed and put her book down, wondering which fool had pissed off her sister this time.

"What's wrong?" she sighed, turning around.

"It's that fucking bitch Harder," Tenryuu growled. "She just... walked up to me, told me that I couldn't protect Ikazuchi during the War, and that I wouldn't be able to protect her now. Said that... that I'd leave them, and that she'd leave Hibiki alive... just to watch her suffer."

"You... do know she'd never do that without getting crucified - perhaps literally?" Tatsuta pointed.

"Y-Yeah, but..." Tenryuu's voice hitched, and she looked towards her sister. Tatsuta, for her part, started in shock as she realized Tenryuu was _crying_. "Th-There's this part of me that keeps telling me t-that she's r-right. That I-I'm going to die, and leave them, and-"

Any further angst was cut off by Tatsuta wrapping her up in a hug. "If you die," Tatsuta whispered. "It will be saving those girls, and carving a bloody swathe through your enemies. I say that's as good an end as any. Besides." She pulled back, and shot a cocky grin at her older sister. "If you die, I will make sure to resurrect you just so I can slap you upside the head for being a reckless fool. Got it?"

Tenryuu let out a weak chuckle and wiped her eyes. "Y-Yeah, thanks."

"Glad to help," Tatsuta replied, standing up and brushing off her skirt. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to have a word with Harder."

Tenryuu shuddered at the expression on her sister's face. "Don't traumatize her too badly, okay?"

"I make no promises."

~o~

"Seriously, Harder, you need to ease up or you're gonna piss off somebody who can kick your ass," Albacore admonished.

"Ah, it'll be fine," Harder scoffed. "As long as I avoid the Kongo sisters, I'll be fine. Their ASW is shit."

Albacore opened her mouth to object, only for Sealion to cut her off.

"Let Miss 'I eat destroyers for breakfast' dig her own grave," the older submarine stated.

Any reply was preempted by a dainty knocking at the door.

"Speak of the devil..."

"Come in!" Albacore called out.

The door opened, admitting Tatsuta. Harder perked up at this, letting a wide grin spread across her features. "Ah, you must be that old granny Tenryuu's sister. You want revenge or something?"

"Yes," Tatsuta stated.

Harder snorted as she scanned over the light cruiser. No weapons, no muscle tone like Tenryuu. "What are you going to do, talk me to death?"

Tatsuta's smile inched up a few radians. "I believe I shall take that as a challenge," Tatsuta stated, before turning to Albacore and Sealion. "I suggest you leave. This won't be pretty."

"Come on, Albacore," Sealion said as she dragged the other submarine out the door. "Think of it like Missouri reacting to someone threatening one of her sisters."

Almost immediately, Sealion found herself being the one dragged as Albacore triple-timed it out of there.

~o~

Goto glanced at the gibbering submarine on his carpet, then back at Tatsuta. "What the hell did you do?"

"Can't sleep, pig will get me... can't sleep, pig will get me... can't sleep, pig will get me..."

"Trust me, Admiral. You don't want to know." Even as she said this, Tatsuta's smile didn't change one bit.

"All fish and no meal makes Harder a lewd girl... All fish and no meal makes Harder a lewd girl... All fish and no meal makes Harder a lewd girl..."

"Right..." Goto glanced back down at Harder. "You know, we keep getting Abyssal prisoners, and the sapient ones never like to talk without... persuasion. We always risk losing them without learning any more. You get my drift?"

"I AM THE PRETTIEST FROG IN THIS POND!"

"I believe I do, Admiral," Tatsuta nodded. "When do I start?"

"Grassy knoll! THE MOON LANDING WAS FAKE! _JET FUEL CAN'T MELT STEEL BEAMS!"_

"Meet me here in my office tomorrow at 0900 hours," Goto replied. "We can get started immediately."

"SLKJ;ALSJKDH;FALJSDH;ALKJSH;LAKSDHF;ALKDSHF;ALSDKHF;ALSDHGLAKSJDG-"

"WILL SOMEONE GET HER OUT OF MY OFFICE?!" Goto howled.


	196. Rule 610

**Rule 610. Kongo is forbidden from summoning shipgirls. Yes, it was hot and the ice was welcome. It's still bad form to abduct Enterprise so you can summon a BRL.**

Heat, humidity, and cicadas. The dread combination of a Japanese summer. Worse for shipgirls, who had blazing hot steam boilers in their torsos. And factor in global warming... well. It was no surprise that three of the four Kongo sisters were parked in front of an overworked fan, their tops down around their waist.

"Sooo hooot..." Hiei groaned.

"Haruna is not alright..." the youngest sister concurred.

"According to my research, the global average temperature has risen by a full degree Celsius since the 1940s," Kirishima chipped in.

"Oh... I thought it was hotter than back then."

Silence fell over the sisters. It was too hot to do anything else. This silence was broken a few minutes later by Kongo throwing the door open.

"Sisters!" she announced, adjusting the load on her shoulder. "I bring a solution!"

With that, she dumped her load onto the tatami mats, and all three Kongo sisters were treated to the sight of Enterprise wrapped up in steel rebar, a ball gag in her mouth.

"Mmph!"

"Don't worry, dear, it's only for a little while," Kongo reassured the carrier, adding in a rather patronizing pat on the head.

"MMPH!"

Haruna, Hiei, and Kirishima all sent worried glances at each other.

"This is not alright..." Haruna whimpered.

"I'm wondering where Kongo got that gag," Hiei said.

"Sister..." Kirishima said, adjusting her glasses. "What, exactly, was your plan here? What problem requires you to go to San Diego just to kidnap Enterprise?"

"The heat, of course!" Kongo replied. "Enterprise here will be the key to the ritual to summon the ice cream barge! Oh, and I didn't go to San Diego. I got lucky, Enterprise was here to go on a date with Yamato."

If the Kongo sisters' smiles were strained before, now they were outright cracking.

"Let me get this straight," Kirishima stated coldly. "You decided that the best solution to beating the heat was to kidnap Enterprise, the most decorated and beloved shipgirl in the thousands-strong American Navy, from her date with Yamato, the largest and most powerful battleship in the world, in order to summon the ice cream barge, who I might add has already been summoned."

Kongo flinched and began poking her fingers together. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"In that case," Kirishima continued, standing up. "I believe we shall leave you to your fate."

"Namu amida butsu," Hiei intoned, clapping her hands together and bowing her head.

Haruna, naturally, had already left, and her two sisters soon followed, leaving Kongo and Enterprise alone in the room.

"They're overreacting," Kongo scoffed. "It can't be that bad."

Despite the gag, Kongo had the distinct impression Enterprise was smirking at her.

~o~

"Alright, it's time to launch Operation Get Enterprise Back!" Yorktown announced. "Sound off! Carriers first!"

"Lexington, here!"

"Saratoga, here!"

"Wasp, here!"

"Hornet, here!"

"Essex, here!"

"Yorktown, here!"

"Intrepid, here!"

"Hornet, here!"

"Franklin, here!"

Standing at the back of the destroyer line, Meredith sighed. This was going to take forever.

~o~

"Ah, well," Kongo decided. "I might as well start the ritual now. Just in case."

Kongo reached forward...

And the wall behind her exploded in a storm of torn paper and wood splinters. And in the center of it was the towering, red-eyed form of Yamato. Kongo gulped. She hadn't quite grasped how tall Yamato was, but having the battleship looming over her really drove home the height difference.

"My name is Yamato," the battleship announced, cracking her knuckles. "You took my Enterprise. Prepare to die."

Sweating, Kongo stared for a second before doing the only thing she could: she ran. Unfortunately, she didn't count on Yamato's reaction speed, and was swiftly snagged by the ankle.

~o~

Hoppo frolicked through the gardens of Yokosuka, her attention flitting from target to target. A butterfly, a flower, an interesting patch of grass. Oh, and there was Kongo being dragged into one of the tatami rooms, her fingers carving grooves into the wood!

Wait.

Hoppo-chan paused mid-step as she took in the scene. Kongo, of course, but also Yamato looking hella scary and Enterprise hogtied on the floor. The fast battleship, looking up from her attempts to get away, sent a pleading look at the Abyssal Princess.

"Hoppo-chan! Help me!"

At first, Hoppo leaned forward as if she was going to finish her step - and then spun around so that she stepped the other direction.

[Nope.] she muttered, double-timing it away. [Nope nope nope nope nope so much nope.]


	197. Rule 612

**Rule 612. As some people seem to have forgotten this, every Fletcher destroyer has 174 sisters that are willing and able to come to the defense of their sister. That includes Willie D.**

"Muh-muh-muh myyyy Sharona..." William D. Porter hummed to herself as she jogged down the oceanfront of Coronado, the song in question playing through her earphones. All around her, beachgoers from all across the country waved and took pictures, some even throwing in a quick "Hello!" She made sure to at least wave to those people.

As she approached the Hotel Del Coronado, a curious sight caught her attention: a U-Boat, sitting on a bench and looking thoroughly miserable. And it was a familiar kind of misery, the kind created by a paralyzing sense of incompetence. Basically, her six months ago, before Nicholas and the others had taken the chance to reach out to her. This girl probably needed a friend, too, and she was due for a break anyway.

Slowing down, the Fletcher came to a halt next to the bench, and sat down on it, slipping her earbuds out in the process.

"Hey," she said to the sniffling U-boat next to her. "What's your name?"

The U-boat - who now that Willie D. was closer she could see was a Type VII - sniffed and glanced up to her. "U-U-505..." she mumbled.

A flash of recognition shot across Willie D.'s face, and U-505 saw it, too, because she immediately curled up into a ball.

"Go 'way..." she muttered.

"No."

"You're just saying that."

"Oh, no, I'm not."

"Of course you are!" U-505 suddenly burst out. "Everyone does! Everyone knows I'm a screwup! I'm the only ship in the war to get my fool ass captured _in combat,_ and then I'm just left on display in Chicago for decades! Chicago! It's not even within a thousand miles of the ocean! And then I get summoned, I think I might be able to make up for it, and what happens? I'm even more of a screwup! I blunder into shipgirls, I get taken out by two DEs without any trouble, I'm constantly injured, I torpedoed Bismarck once by accident-!"

"That was you?!" Willie blurted out, immediately regretting it when U-505's face scrunched up and she started bawling.

Willie flinched back, before reaching over and patting the submarine on the shoulder. "There, there..." she said uncertainly.

She grimaced as that did nothing to stem the flow of tears. Dammit, how did New Jersey and the rest make this look so easy?! And then it came to her.

She leaned in, and whispered, "I'm William D. Porter." into her ear.

U-505 stopped crying in favor of gaping at Willie D.

"Wait, you're William D. Porter?!" she exclaimed. "The Derp Destroyer? The Republican? The Unluckiest Shipgirl in the world? The Anti-Iowa?"

"Seriously, where did that one come from?" Willie muttered to herself, grimacing at the long litany of unflattering nicknames. "Yeah, the same."

"Th-Then..." U-505 whispered before wrapping up the destroyer in a tight hug. "You do understand!"

"Yup!" Willie D. smirked, reaching down to stroke U-505's hair. "And guess what? I'm not a screwup anymore! Wanna know my secret?"

In lieu of a verbal response, the submarine just shot her a weapons-grade set of puppy-dog eyes.

"Here it is," Willie said, leaning in to whisper in U-505's ear again. "Sisters. You have 702 sisters. I'm sure there's at least one willing to help you."

U-505 didn't respond for the longest time, then looked back up at Willie. "W-Would friends work, too?"

"Of course!" Willie D. cheerfully responded. "By the way, have you been to the Hotel Del Coronado before?"

U-505 shook her head, and Willie opened her mouth to offer a tour when she realized that there were a lot of screaming people about. That was as far as she got before she felt a prick at her neck, and then nothing.

~o~

Consciousness came slowly to Willie, and in fits and starts. The first thing that she was aware of was that the chair she was sitting on was very uncomfortable. The second, following closely on the heels of the first, was that she was tied down to it by some very strong steel cable. A few tests confirmed no give.

The third thing she was aware of was the voice. "Ah, Wreck, I'm so glad you could make it!" it said in a voice that sounded like an unholy combination of Celine Dion with throat cancer and Kim Kardashian.

Willie slowly opened her eyes, confirming that yes, the monster known as Wreck was right in front of her. Wreck was one of the more infamous Abyssals, identical in appearance to a standard Re-class battleship. Hell, some of the eggheads thought she might be the template for the Re-class. Her real identity, though, was the unfinished battleship Kentucky, Abyssalized after her protracted scrapping and configured in her BBG layout. Willie repressed a shiver; she was good at AA, but a 60s-era DDG blew her out of the water, and Wreck brought a good twenty times the missile firepower to the table.

The other figure was entirely unfamiliar. The goggles and white labcoat, plus the fact that her back was turned, obscured most of her features. All that could be seen was a long mane of red hair. Despite that, Willie felt an instinctual frisson of hate run through her.

[... You. Fucking. Idiot.] Wreck spat. [I suggest you let her go. Now.]

"Why, Wreck, I didn't know you cared!" the redhead said, surprised.

[I don't, at least, not about her. I do care about the 876 sisters these two have that are probably on their way to sack this place.]

Wait, two?

"Pah! Those fools couldn't conquer me in a million years!"

Tilting her head, Willie found that she had some give there. This confirmed, she turned her head to both sides, catching sight of a terrified-looking U-505 tied up next to her.

[Meh, your funeral. Me, I'm getting out of here.]

"Bah! Be like that!"

Willie had no time to try and alert U-505 before the redhead turned her way, revealing a manic grin on a round and rather attractive face. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes. William D. Porter. You've fascinated me for a very long time."

Willie D. didn't repress a shiver this time when her captor glided over, a scalpel tracing along her jaw line.

"Yes, that bad luck of yours. I thought it exaggerated, but that event you and Yukikaze performed - entirely by accident! - told me the stories were true," she continued, reaching over and pulling down a large device. "Now, hold still. The Combobulator isn't the most accurate of machines."

Willie's eyes widened as the device started humming ominously. A glow built over the tip, growing brighter and brighter and-

"Director?"

The Director's face scrunched up in a way that would be comical if she weren't pointing some strange machine at her. "Yes, dear, what is it?"

"I have the latest intelligence from the Mediterranean," said a near-complete copy of Hoppo-chan as she stepped through the door. "I took the liberty of forwarding it to the Island Siege Empress beforehand."

"Mm, good work, my dear," the Director stated, taking the papers. "My word, the Americans are serious about this. I didn't expect them to commit Coral Sea and Midway."

Willie's eyes widened. That had been announced the previous night! How had the Abyssals gotten their hands on that information so quickly?!

"Anything else?"

"No, Director."

"Good," the Director grinned, grabbing the Combobulator again. "Now, back to the-"

The door banged open, admitting a Wo-class carrier.

"God give me strength!" the Director snarled, burying her scalpel into the chair back. "What is it?!"

[W-We're under attack!]

"WHAT?!"

~o~

The Director took the stairs two at a time. Of all the times for an attack, it had to be when she was about to make progress on her research!

"Report!" she barked as she reached the battlements, two of her Abyssal minions manning a large cannon.

[Lots of mist, so we're just starting to see silhouettes!] the taller Abyssal reported.

The Director glanced out onto the sea, and gulped. That was a _lot_ of silhouettes. Very distinct silhouettes: the combination of flush deck and boxy 5" singles was instantly recognizable.

"The Fletchers..." she breathed. "Release the Imps! And order the light cruiser to support them!"

[Wait...] the other Abyssal said. [If those are the Fletchers... where are the Type VIIs?]

It was at that point that a trio of submarines popped out of nowhere, plugging a dozen torpedoes into the two cannon crews, a trio of 88mm HE rounds into the cannonitself, and a punch to the face for the Director.

"Hoy!" U-29 exclaimed. "Dis vun is human! Vot's she doink all de vay out here?"

"Hy tink it dun matter," U-33 scoffed. "Ve's got bigger problems zan vun lost human."

"Agreed," U-34 nodded. "Ve can come back later. U-505 takes priority, und iz not like she is goink to just op and valk avay."

 _'Heh, fools,'_ the Director scoffed as she lay on the ground while the U-boats left. _'I am no ordinary human! Though... 174 Fletchers and 702 Type VIIs is kind of out of my weight class. Time to go; the better part of valor and all that.'_

Glancing over the side, she found no Fletchers in sight. There was her assistant sitting in the water, waiting. With that, she threw herself off the side, the Hoppo lookalike catching her and then slipping underwater.

"Good job, dear," she said, patting the small Abyssal's head. "Now, to the secondary base!"


	198. Rule 620

**Rule 620. Situational Awareness is a thing. There will be mandatory courses on the subject matter for everyone.**

"Ah, Mogami!" Kongo shouted as she caught up to her. "Here, I need you to keep an eye on this."

Mogami held up the package the battleship had just pressed into her hands. "You... want me to watch your tea?"

"Yes!" Kongo stated, grabbing Mogami's hand. "I need to sortie in... seven minutes, my quarters with Admiral Goto are too far away, and I _do not trust_ the rest of the shipgirls to leave it alone. I need a guard, and you were the first person I could find."

Mogami flinched as Kongo's words seemed to pierce her heart. "Y-Yeah... I'll do that..." she shakily replied.

"Great!" Kongo chirped, before flouncing away. Mogami watched her go, then held up the package again.

"Seriously, what's so good about this tea?" she muttered, before mentally shrugging and resuming her walk to where she was originally going; namely, the aviation maintenance bay, where her fairies were supposed to be finishing up work on her seaplanes.

Several shipgirls sent curious glances at her and the package she was carrying, but otherwise ignored her. At least, until she ran into Shimakaze.

"Hey, what's that?" the destroyer asked, pointing at the package.

"Oh, this is Kongo's latest tea shipment," Mogami replied.

"Hmm..." Shimakaze eyed the package, Rensohou-chan peeking over her shoulder. "Mind if I take a look at it?"

Mogami silently debated that for a moment before shrugging. A quick look couldn't hurt, could it?

"Sure," she said, handing over the package.

Shimakaze hummed thoughtfully as she looked it over, then nodded and started walking off. Mogami beamed, and continued her journey in the other direction.

It took her about a minute to realize Shimakaze hadn't given her the tea back.

"Shit!" she yelped, turning around and running at top speed back to where she'd left Shimakaze. No dice, the destroyer was long gone. At that realization, she slumped down into a squat, her hands pressing her head down into her knees.

"Ahhhhh... Kongo's going to kill me..." she whimpered.

"Why am I going to kill you?"

Slowly, Mogami looked back up at Kongo, who was standing behind her looking concerned. The heavy cruiser promptly let out a sound not unlike a goat bleating and toppled over, foaming at the mouth.

"What in the world," Kongo deadpanned, before realizing something was missing from this picture. "My tea!"

~o~

Shimakaze let out a contented groan and stretched her arms above her head before flopping down on her bed.

"Tea's on top of the dresser," she said as Kongo reached down from the ceiling vent to grab her. "Feel free to take it."

The hands paused, before reaching over to the dresser to grab the tea. Kongo's exit was much less stealthy, with the grating actually banging shut.

"Heh, I wonder how badly she scared Mogami," Shimakaze chuckled, before shuddering. "Scratch that, I don't want to know."


	199. Rule 622

**Another omake from Shaithan!**

 **Rule 622. The song 1916 by Motörhead may not be played on any base any longer. All shipgirls who understand English were bawling their eyes out.**

Admiral Takeda was a rather serious man. He didn't have an ounce of humor and generally preferred to stay well away from the antics of his shipgirls. To his eternal relief none of the girls at Kure were after him like Kongo and those who were he shot down quickly with the mention of being married with children.

All in all, he prided himself on the tight reign he kept on his base, to the point that there were seldom incidents that merited Kure contributing to the rules list. He truly didn't envy his comrades around the world. Just thinking about the madness they suffered from threatened to give him an ulcer.

So, it surprised him quite badly when his office door banged open and his daughter barged in, clearly upset.

"Nabiki-chan!" he said, scooping up his daughter. "What happened? Were some of the foreigners mean to you? Or some of my girls?"

Nabiki shook her head. "NO!" she said forcefully. "It's Yamato-tan, she was crying!"

Admiral Takeda blinked once, twice. "Yamato?" he parroted, dumbfounded. "What happened?"

His daughter shrugged, while clinging to him. "I don't know. She was listening to a song and just started crying."

Admiral Takeda frowned and got up, still carrying his daughter. He'd have to see for himself what made the otherwise so composed Yamato upset enough to _cry._

When he came to the lounge, he found that not only Yamato was in tears. All the girls here on exchange sat there, some crying and all looking thoroughly miserable. Worst of all was Musashi, who was working her way through her third box of tissues. Some of his destroyers and other ships were also sitting there, staring into nothing.

With the trained eye of an admiral Takeda realized that morale had been shot to hell. "What happened?" he asked, concern evident in his voice. While he would usually keep his distance from the girls, this mandated his personal intervention.

Yamato composed herself, barely, before answering. "Johnston wanted to send a final salute to Lemmy," she began.

Admiral Takeda hadn't lived under a rock the last few decades, so the name was familiar. "But what happened?" he wanted to know.

Musashi piped up. "Oh, most of the songs were good, but one really hit us," she said. "A song about getting sent out with high hopes just to see all hopes crushed by the grim reality of a futile action. It... brought back memories." The battleship let out a loud sniffle and tossed the tissue into the garbage can.

"Let me hear this song," Takeda demanded.

An mp3-player with headphones was pressed into his hands by a red-eyed Mahan.

"Thank you," Takeda said and began listening.

With every line, his heart sunk farther. He could understand how his girls would relate to the song. They returned, eager for a fight, ready to go down in history once more. But they also remembered the history they had before. Setting sail for a great war, to become heroes and then ending up as statistics, often dying an ignoble death where no one would come to rescue them or, in Yamato's case, getting sent out in a futile gesture, as food for the American guns. Old wounds, long considered forgotten, had been re-opened. This mandated immediate action.

"Girls," Takeda began, absently handing his daughter to Mahan. "We're going to do something I don't do often. We're going to share a drink and celebrate life. We are in a war, we may lose friends, siblings or significant others, but we will not let those that went be forgotten! They have names and will not be swept up into a statistic! And even in the darkest hour, we will continue to fight! We will see the end of this war and we will do our utmost to see the end of the war together! None of us shall be forgotten or get sent into a futile, doomed-from-the-start foray! We will live on!" He pumped his fist into the air, one index finger pointing towards the heavens. "War is hell. But we will endure this hell and emerge from it in a time where it is a thing of the past. We all, together!"

The assembled girls perked up. There were no cheers, as this was not a moment of joy, but of promise. They'd see the end of the war, together, whatever the cost may be.


	200. Rule 626

**Another omake from the inestimable Sheo Darren!**

 **Rule 626. Harder isn't hiding under Ikazuchi 's bed, waiting. We promise.**

Tenryuu was resting peacefully. Tatsuta was off in Norway on exchange with Tirpitz' fleet. Nothing could disturb her rest. With a content sigh, she closed her eyes, humming "Enter Sandman" and drifting off to sleep.

Just as she was nearly gone, her door was kicked in, causing enough ruckus to wake the dead.

Tenryuu nearly jumped out of her skin and did jump out of her bed. "What?" she bellowed.

"Submarine! Under Ikazuchi's bed, nanodesu~!" Inazuma said frantically.

"What? I'll show that girl!" Tenryuu growled.

Clad in only hotpants and a band-shirt, she followed the frantic Inazuma.

In the destroyer dorm, they came upon Hibiki, who had just pressed a drink into her sister's hand. "It helps," she said quietly.

Ikazuchi nodded, took a sip and shuddered. "Thank you," she said.

Hibiki nodded. "Da. Vodka helps."

Tenryuu decided to do nothing about that. Ikazuchi had her hang-ups with submarines, so she had no problems with the destroyer downing a stiff drink to calm down. Besides, she had bigger problems.

She herself went to Ikazuchi's bed and peered under it. "Come out. Now," she growled, only to be answered by a light snore.

"What did Gneisenau say was appropriate in this situation? Ah, yes." Tenryuu grinned. "And if you aren't willing, then I'll use violence."

Grabbing the girl, Tenryuu gave a mighty heave. "Come on out!" she shouted, pulling a girl clutching a pillow.

"Ow! U-47, you lied!" she wailed.

Tenryuu was taken aback, as the girl was obviously American. "Why were you sleeping there?" she demanded.

The girl in question looked up. "Tenryuu?" she asked. "Why did you attack me?"

Tenryuu glared back at the submarine. "Because you slept under Ikazuchi's bed. Do you have any idea how scared she was?"

"Harder-chan!" a new voice called.

Tenryuu turned around to see Iku standing in the doorway. "Did you put her up to this?" she asked in a low tone.

Iku shook her head. "No, I was looking for her. She wasn't in her bed."

Tenryuu turned back to Harder, who sat there like a heap of misery. "Well, why did you sleep there?" she asked, no longer threatening but curious.

Harder gave a small shrug. "It's something U-47 taught me. I can find a safe spot to sleep in and this was where it lead me," she explained.

"Why under Ikazuchi-chan's bed, though, nanodesu?" Inazuma asked.

Harder shrugged. "It felt safe. Nothing bad could happen to me there."

Iku nodded. "Right. Harder had a bit of a bad experience with unsafe sleeping conditions."

"That's horrible, nanondesu!" Inazuma shouted, her good nature coming to the forefront as she hugged the submarine.

Ikazuchi nodded. "If she feels safe there, she can continue to sleep there." she said magnanimously. "But tell us next time, I was really afraid."

Akatsuki nodded. "Yeah, that wasn't an elegant thing to do."

Harder hung her head. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.

Tenryuu heaved a sigh. "Well, now that we've cleared this up, can I go back to sleep?" she grumbled.

The destroyers and submarines all gave noises of confirmation.

"Then let's go back to bed," Tenryuu ordered.

Harder vanished quickly under Ikazuchi's bed while Iku left. Tenryuu put her charges into bed. "Sleep well, girls," she said fondly.

"Good night, mama," five voices came back.

Tenryuu blushed and left, grateful that Tatsuta hadn't heard that.


	201. Rule 632

**Rule 632. Shimakaze is no longer allowed to appear before the POTUS and US Media without an escort and professional attire...we're still getting calls.**

The thunder of shells, the buzz of planes, the torpedoes streaking through the water... ah, this was battle. As Shimakaze sped through the battlefield, she counted herself lucky she could fight.

The Japanese force she was a part of had been escorting a convoy to Vancouver and were scheduled for a short layover in Seattle, but that had been cut short when an Abyssal force had been spotted heading towards the mouth of the Columbia River with no American forces close enough to intervene. Their flagship, Hyuuga, had made a judgement call to intercept them, and so the two forces had met in the large estuary, a running battle had ensuing as the Japanese kanmusu tried and succeeded at stopping the Abyssal advance up the river.

On that note, Shimakaze paused in her maneuvers to note a trio of destroyers, accompanied by a baker's dozen of PT imps, slipping up the river, presumably to hit Portland.

"This is Shimakaze," she reported into her radio set. "Am in pursuit of Abyssal light forces up the river."

 _"Roger, Shimakaze,"_ Hyuuga replied. _"Give 'em hell."_

To her consternation, however, Shimakaze was unable to catch up to them before they turned into the Willamette River, and that meant she only caught up to them when they were busily shelling downtown Portland.

Growling, the destroyer loosed a full fifteen-fish spread of torpedoes. Six missed; the rest turned two destroyers and two imps into so much shrapnel. The last destroyer barely had time to turn around before Shimakaze jammed Rensohou-chan down its maw and fired.

That just left the remaining PT imps, which had scattered and started machine-gunning the shores. Shimakaze didn't pause to reload torpedoes; the imps went down to 5" shells just fine, and speed was more important at this juncture. It took less than ten minutes for her to finish mopping up.

And then an 8" shell screamed out of the sky and slammed into the Hawthorne Bridge, blowing a neat hole out of one of the spans.

Shimakaze gulped as she spotted a battered but still very much combat-capable Ne-class cruiser heading down the river for her, and no time to reload torpedoes. Still, she couldn't leave, not in the heart of Portland. So she did the only thing she could.

She went into melee with the bastard.

~o~

"Hyah!"

With that shout, Shimakaze jammed one of her torpedoes into the gut of the Abyssal cruiser, the warhead promptly blowing a massive hole in its guts. Panting, the destroyer stepped back and let it keel over, waiting to see if it would move. It didn't, at which point the variety of small wounds she'd acquired seemingly hit her all at once. She kneeled down, gripping a bleeding cut on her arm, and so was caught completely off guard by the cheers from the people lining the river. It seemed like everyone in Portland was watching.

Heaving a sigh, she grinned and threw up her fingers in a victory sign. The cheers redoubled. Ah, so nice.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of explaining. First that she needed a hot bath, not bandages, to the citizens of Portland. Then explaining to her task force that yes, she was alive, and yes, Portland hadn't been burned to the ground. And then it was someone explaining to her the next morning that the President of the United States wanted her to fly out to Washington D.C. in five days. That had probably left her the most flustered.

Still, after a conference with Admiral Goto everything had been worked out, some extra supplies had been sent, and now she was in a government-rented 787 flying to Washington, and the outfit they had given her _sucked_.

"Seriously?" she muttered as she looked over the very professional gray pantsuit. The actual JMSDF dress uniform lay ignored at the bottom of the suitcase. "God, I look like some stuffy business woman." She held the outfit up, and glanced at a mirror someone had thoughtfully left her. "Or a kid playing dress-up."

Shrugging, she carelessly tossed the business attire back into the suitcase. Damn the PR guys, she'd wear her normal outfit.

~o~

"Goddammit," Goto groaned as he watched Shimakaze accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom on live television _in her goddamn combat outfit._ He had a feeling that a lot of the Congressmen who had voted to give her the medal were now seriously rethinking that decision.

And then she bowed towards the President.

Goto's head hit his desk once, twice, three times, the last time not lifting up again. "Ooyodo," came the muffled groan. "What's the damage?"

"I'm counting seven separate flame wars on Twitter alone," the light cruiser reported. "Reddit and Facebook aren't much better. And Tumblr has, naturally, gone completely ballistic. The term 'civil war' would be apt."

"Wait..." Goto raised his head, giving his secretary ship a quizzical look. "Flame wars? You mean we have _defenders_?"

"Yes," she stated. "I believe the primary defense is the precedent of some military personnel wearing their combat uniforms, as well as numerous examples of their own shipgirls wearing similar outfits. Regardless, the... discussion is very heated."

"That's... well, it could be a lot worse," Goto sighed. Naturally, that's when the phones started ringing.

"I'll start fending off the Congressmen," Ooyodo sighed.


	202. Rule 637

**Rule 637. Hoppo-chan is not a squeeze toy.**

Hoppo giggled as she read through the tankobon in her hands. Ah, Sayuri-chan was so silly! So worried about chasing that one boy that she never realized how many other suitors she had. Kinda like Ashigara, not that the small Abyssal would ever say that to her face. Captain Yonehara was _scary_.

"HOPPO-CHAN!"

Nagato suddenly swept into the room, in the full throes of a Category 5 Nagacane. Tears streaming from her eyes, she wrapped up Hoppo in a tight hug, only a quick toss saving the manga.

"Oh, it's terrible, Hoppo-chan!" Nagato sobbed. "I've been banned from every zoo in Kanto now! It's not my fault the monkeys are so ridiculously cute I have to go in and hug them!"

 _[Yes, it is.]_ Hoppo thought. Out loud, she just hugged back. Nagato-mama had her quirks, but she liked being with the battleship.

After five minutes, Hoppo began getting uncomfortable.

[Uh, Nagato-mama?] she said, her voice slightly strained. [Could you let go, please?]

"No!" Nagato shouted, squeezing Hoppo even closer. "I need you, Hoppo-chan!"

By now the Abyssal's organic armor was starting to creak alarmingly, so she did the only thing she could.

She wriggled a hand free, and then slammed a monstrous uppercut into Nagato's jaw.

As the battleship went careening through the ceiling, Hoppo sighed and picked up her manga again.

[I hope she doesn't make a habit of this...] she muttered.

~o~

"Fusou, please!" Yamashiro pleaded as she fought against the hand keeping her away. "Let me love you!"

"Dammit, this is the last time I borrow tea from Ashigara!" Fusou growled as she fended off her amorous sister, who had thankfully lost most of her faculties in the process. "What the hell did she put in that stuff?!"

The two battleships struggled a while longer, only for the sound of splintering wood to catch Fusou's attention. She glanced up just in time to see Nagato crash in via the roof and land butt-first on Yamashiro, crushing the latter under her weight - as well as the floor underneath.

Fusou blinked, then took a cautious step forward. Yamashiro was out like a light, Nagato's dead weight pressing her head through a large hole in the floor, while Nagato herself was completely out of it, likely due to the livid bruise spreading across her chin.

For a moment, Fusou just stared before shrugging. "Ah, whatever. Maybe I'll actually get some peace and quiet for a while."


	203. Rule 641

**Rule 641. Kidnapping the significant other of your sister ships is no longer allowed.**

RMS Britannic groaned. His head was throbbing, and the last thing he remembered was leaving the hospital in London he worked at, looking forward to a Skype conversation with his girlfriend. And now he was...

Lying on a bed in an RV of some kind? What?

"Oh, good, you're awake."

Britannic glanced towards the source of the voice, surprise stealing over his face as he beheld Enterprise in a casual outfit of jeans and a t-shirt, two mugs of coffee in her hands. "Coffee?" she offered.

"Where am I?" Britannic asked, a hint of panic creeping into his voice as he struggled to remember the old regulations for capture.

"Well, right now we're somewhere on the ass-end of highway 395. Take a look!"

With mounting dread, Britannic glanced out the nearest window, and groaned at the scrub desert they were driving through.

"Why?" he wondered despairingly.

"To see all the great landmarks of America, of course!" Enterprise practically _squealed_. "Starting with Death Valley!"

Why anyone would _ever_ want to willing visit a place called _Death fucking Valley_ was beyond him, but the liner was shortly distracted from that thought by another, equally disturbing one.

"Who's driving?"

"Titanic, duh," Enterprise airily replied, before sending a quizzical glance at the surprise on Britannic's face. "What, you thought I did this alone? For starters, this was Titanic's idea, and of course I needed to bring my girlfriend to see the sights."

"Hello!" Yamato greeted from one of the RV's front seats.

Britannic groaned and let his head fall into his hands. "There's no getting out of this, is there?"

"Nope!"

~o~

"Ah, that was fun," Titanic groaned, stretching out his arms as the quartet of ships clambered back into the RV after a quick sojourn at Furnace Creek.

"Ugh, so hot..." Enterprise grumbled.

"I, Yamato, find myself in agreement," the battleship said, her parasol held over her girlfriend's head. "I never imagined such heat could exist in this world.

Engrossed in their conversation, neither noticed Britannic pull out his phone and look at it. Nor did they see the wide grin that spread across his face. Instead, he just followed them into the RV.

"Ah, glorious air conditioning..." Enterprise sighed contentedly as Titanic started up the engine and began to pull away. "How do you _stand_ it, Titanic?"

"I... have something of an aversion to the cold," the ocean liner muttered. He reached up to check the rearview mirror, and promptly paled in shock. This did not escape the attention of either warship, especially when Titanic began seriously accelerating.

"Uh, Titanic?" Enterprise asked. "What's got you so spooked?"

"Oh, just our older brother and my girlfriend coming to retrieve me," Britannic interrupted before the two warships could say anything.

Titanic's mouth dropped open slightly... and then his attention was diverted by a pitter-patter of feet next to the car. He glanced to his left, and promptly nearly lost control at the sight of Hornet running next to the car, looking like she'd been possessed.

"Traitors!" she shouted, before suddenly tripping on something and falling behind.

For a moment, Titanic, Enterprise, and Yamato simply gaped at the sight.

"What the fuck..." Enterprise summed up.

"No kidding," Titanic agreed. "We were going over 50 by then. No way should she have been able to keep up, especially not on land."

Any further discussion was cut off by a metallic thump on the roof. Followed by another. And another. Each involving a goddamn _arrowhead_ punching through the roof.

"Swerve, dammit, swerve!" Enterprise yelped.

"Swerving!" Titanic shot back, swinging the wheel back and forth.

It didn't work, Yamato screaming as the arrowhead punched through the roof not two inches from her face.

"Hit the brakes!" she shrieked.

Instinctively, Titanic hit the brakes, throwing Hornet face-first onto the pavement. Not two seconds later, she sat up, directing a gaze straight from the pits of hell at them.

"She can't be killed..." Titanic breathed in terror.

"I surrender!" Yamato immediately shouted, grabbing a spare t-shirt and throwing it on top of the antenna. "Just don't hurt me!"

"Et tu, Yamato?" Enterprise muttered. She immediately shuddered as a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

"I do believe you have bigger problems than dear Hornet, darling," Olympic drawled.


	204. Rule 643

**Rule 643. Whoever started the bonfire near the Battleship Barracks are to report to CO's office immediately. And YOU WILL APOLOGIZE TO MUTSU AND IOWA!**

"-And then they just up and arrested him!" Mutsu exclaimed.

"No shit?" Iowa confirmed, taking a swig of her beer. "Well, Jesus, that was fast."

"Still kinder than leaving him to the destroyers that found him," the Japanese battleship countered.

Iowa flinched at her many encounters with William D. Porter. "Yeah. Much." She frowned. "What is the fuck is that noise?"

"It seems to be coming from outside..." Mutsu mused, walking over to the window and opening it.

Iowa was greeted with the sound of a crackling fire and the sight of Mutsu suddenly going rigid. She immediately ran up to the window and looked out on the massive bonfire blazing in the courtyard. Thick, oily smoke rose above the bright orange flames, and there was an occasional explosive pop as something burst within the fuel. Iowa's knees shook slightly as the sight brought up some... unpleasant memories, but she grit her teeth and slugged back the last of my beer.

 _'I survived that explosion,'_ she growled to herself. _'I will_ not _be defeated by a fucking bonfire of all things! ... Shit, Mutsu!'_

As much as Iowa never wanted to remember her old turret explosion, Mutsu's fate had been far worse. She had outright _blown up_ in harbor, her hull left to rot in the mud and eventually taken apart for scrap metal. Only a turret encrusted with pigeon poop - and her kanmusu form, naturally - gave any sign she had ever been there.

Looking to the other battleship, Iowa found Mutsu locked in a standing faint, her eyes rolled up into her head. And there was still that damn fire outside, weakening her legs.

"Fuck it!" Iowa growled, grabbing Mutsu and bracing her over her shoulders. The fast battleship took one step, her whole body shaking with the effort as she realized she could _feel the heat of the fire_ on her back. The next step was slightly easier, as was the next step, though by the time she exited the room she was drenched in sweat and panting. Still, the paralyzing fear wasn't there anymore, and she immediately made a beeline for the repair facilities.

~o~

"I am going to _strangle_ whoever made that bonfire," Admiral Goto growled. "Do we even know what was burning?"

"Tar-soaked wooden boards, as well as a straw effigy of Vladimir Putin," Ooyodo answered. "A very... realistic effigy."

A thought occurred to Goto. "Could Hibiki have done this?"

"I doubt it," Ooyodo answered, adjusting her glasses. "She's not terribly prone to such rash actions, and she gets melancholy when drunk, not reckless."

Goto sighed. "Well, keep looking. Something needs to be done about this. Dismissed."

Ooyodo nodded, and retreated out to the office's annex. She waited a few minutes, and when no one came in, she heaved a massive sigh of relief and slumped deeper into her chair. That was close. Admiral Goto couldn't know that _she_ was the one who'd set the bonfire. Maybe violent video games or something would be better stress relief.


	205. Rule 646

**646\. Will the shipgirl who launches that Night battle Northrop P - 61 Black Widow please recall it and ground its crew? It's been causing international incidents throughout the Northern Euro-Atlantic front by bouncing not just Abyssal flights but allied fighters as well.**

"So tired..." Formidable groaned as she steamed towards Scapa alongside Illustrious, Renown, and a screen of cruisers and destroyers. She glanced up at the moon, high in the sky. "If it's made of cheese, can I ea- YOW!"

Illustrious huffed as she withdrew her hand, having just smacked her sister upside the head. "Never let down your guard, Formidable!" she admonished. "The enemy is always able to strike, even at night! Especially at- *yawn* -night."

"You're yawning too," Renown pointed out.

"And how long have we been at sea?" Illustrious retorted. "I just want to get back to Scapa safe and sound and then pass out in bed for three days. And we won't do that if Formidable keeps _falling asleep!_ "

That last line was accompanied by the armored carrier grabbing her sister by the shoulders and shaking her back and forth.

"Hawawawawawawawa..."

"Oi..." Renown groaned.

~o~

Standard Carrier WO-3257F steamed silently through the night, her eyes on the prize. One of the few Abyssal veterans, she liked to use her night-capable planes to strike at the convoys when the escorts could barely even see her bombers. She'd bagged quite a few prizes that way, the greatest prize being a 400,000 ton supertanker. Sadly, the proliferation of radar among British shipgirls meant she had to be increasingly circumspect, but now she had an opportunity. None of the stupid Lobsters had noticed her recon plane flying overhead, and considering half of them were periodically nodding off it wasn't hard to see why. Raising her hand, she commanded her planes to launch, a slight smile creeping over her face.

The smile became a full-blown smug grin as her planes started dropping bombs and torpedoes, the carriers caught completely flatfooted. Yes, she would destroy the escorts and the whole convoy. Nothing could stop her now!

[MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!] she cackled, throwing back her head in her laughter.

Naturally, the universe decided that this sort of behavior was an affront to all dignity, and announced its displeasure by destroying several of Wo's bombers.

[Wait, what?!] she yelped, refocusing her attention on the battle. To her dismay, she didn't see anything; something was out there killing her planes, and she _couldn't see it._

Gritting her teeth, Wo turned on her heel and left her planes to their fate. She could regenerate the planes, and she'd rather not risk eating a 15" shell or torpedo.

~o~

"Anything?" Illustrious asked.

Formidable sighed and shook her head. "Whatever Abyssal did this bugged out in a hurry," she answered. "How's Renown doing?"

"I'm managing," the battlecruiser grit out from where Dorsetshire was helping her limp along. "What about you guys? You got hit by a bunch of bombs."

"Our armor protects us!" Illustrious announced, thumping her chest - and immediately doubling over in pain.

Formidable sighed again at her sister's antics, and refocused on her planes. Well, might as well call them back if the Abyssal was go-

"What the hell?!" she yelped as one of the Seafire fighters was splattered with bright orange paint. Then another, and another. Unlike the rather mindless Abyssal planes, though, her fairy pilots quickly scattered, several catching a glimpse of their attacker in the process.

"What in the world is that..." she breathed.

~o~

"This is too much!" Admiral Hartmann barked, slamming his hands down on the table. "That damn plane buzzed Prinz Eugen and Bismarck last night!"

Admiral Masson frowned. "I hardly see how that's-"

"It slapped their butts with its _wings_ ," the German admiral growled. "Neither of them are happy about that."

"Damn thing keeps bouncing the carrier fighters, too," Admiral Collingwood coolly added. "Colossus keeps waking up in the middle of the night screaming about the 'nightmare spider'."

"Look, I don't know what to tell you guys," Admiral Briggs sighed. "E's still our only carrier certified for night ops, and she's been in the South China Sea for the last week. Unless she's learned how to teleport from Kongo, it's not any of our carriers."

All four admirals shuddered at that thought, and then slumped back in their chairs, mulling over the problem. They were missing something, but what?

It was Masson who made the first connection, paling and then slapping her palm to her face.

"We're all idiots..." she groaned. "The plane's been identified as a P-61 Black Widow, right?"

Nods of assent all around.

"That was an _Army Air Corps_ plane."

The silence that followed was deafening.

"What the hell is a goddamn _Army Air Corps plane doing here?!_ " Briggs demanded to no one in particular.


	206. Rule 653

**Rule 653. We know that regulations and such are somewhat relaxed for shipgirls. That doesn't mean human personnel can wear whatever they like, too.**

"Oh my God!"

Karl Buckner sighed as his bunkmate once again voiced his displeasure at one of the scantily-clad shipgirls walking by. Connor Garnett was from a very religious town in Utah, one that frowned heavily on women showing skin. At least, he assumed it was displeasure due to Connor's religious background; privately, Karl knew that he could very well be wrong. He had just simply decided it was none of his business.

Well, now the exclamations were getting annoying in their frequency, so the sailor figured it was time to _make_ it his business.

"Look," he sighed. "I know uniform regs are... relaxed for the shipgirls, and I know you come from a religious family, so-"

"What? No, man, that's not it," Connor exclaimed. "This is great! I wasn't even allowed to look at swimsuit pics on the Internet back home! It just... I'm not used to it, okay? I'll try and tone down the exclamations."

"Huh," Karl breathed in pleasant surprise. "Okay then. So you don't have any problems with shipgirl outfits?"

"N- Well, actually, I do," the other sailor admitted. "Why do we have to follow these uniform regulations and they don't? Like, if it was just minor stuff I wouldn't complain, those girls absolutely deserve that, but-"

Connor flailed his hands towards where New Jersey was leaning back in her chair with her feet on the table, the perfect position to show off her muscular - and very bare - legs.

"And don't even get me started on the subs. Lewdmarines... heh, yeah, that's an apt description."

Karl mulled that over as he finished off his breakfast. "So, what, you just bellyaching?"

"Yeah..." Connor sighed. "Unless someone wants to break those regs six ways to Sunday in protest, and I do _not_ want to be the first one to do that."

Unbeknownst to the two sailors, their conversation had been overheard. And in a law of nature as immutable as thermodynamics, the gossip quickly spread across the base. And this inevitably led to one thing.

Namely, someone being stupid enough to actually try the idea.

~o~

The next morning, Admiral Holloway walked into his office looking somewhat dazed.

"Wright..." he said. "Did Shangri-La declare today a costume day again?"

The light carrier frowned. "No, sir, not that I'm aware of. Why?"

"Because on my way here, I walked by two sailors in cow suits, three in just swim trunks, another dressed like a very dapper Victorian gentleman, and one woman wearing nothing but sunglasses and strategically placed pouch belts," he answered.

Wright blinked, opened her mouth, and closed it, then blinked again.

"I don't know what to tell you, Admiral," she finally answered.

"Right..." Holloway muttered as he made his way to his desk. "I'm going to forget about it, and hopefully it'll be done with by dinner."

He heard a loud thump behind him, like something heavy hitting a desk.

"Uh, Admiral?" he heard Wright say hesitantly. "I don't think that's going to happen."

Very reluctantly, Admiral Holloway turned around and took the proffered printout. At the top it read "Petition to redress double standards in uniform regulations".

"Oh..." Holloway said flatly. "It's gonna be one of those weeks, I can tell."


	207. Rule 655

**655\. Admirals are not to be betted in Poker Games with the Abyssals.**

Mogami checked her cards, and the dwindling stack of seashells representing chips she had with her. Unfortunately, she only had a seven, a jack, a two, a five, and a ten, all offsuit. This was just not her day. First she gets separated from her task force, then cornered by a Ta, a Ru, and a Re. The card deck and a hasty proposal of a poker game for her safety had been all that saved her from nigh-instantaneous annihilation, a nearby Wo recruited as the dealer. And then her usual bad luck had struck again.

"I fold," she groaned, putting her cards down and watching as some of her shells were pressed into the pot. Damn minimum bets!

The Ta won that hand with a pair of kings, and the next round proceeded.

This time, when she got her cards, Mogami barely resisted the urge to break out in a smug grin. There, sitting in her hand, were a quartet of spades. None on the dealer's side, sadly, but odds were she'd get at least one more.

"I raise," she said, pushing about half her shells into the pot. The Ta and Ru immediately folded, the Re matching the bet. The next card was put out. No spade.

 _'I might have made a terrible mistake,'_ Mogami realized, sweat dripping down her brow. Her nervousness only intensified as the Re dumped more shells into the pot.

[Raise,] it said smugly.

A quick check confirmed that no, she didn't have enough shells to match that bet. And the Abyssals clearly knew it, judging from the way they were sizing her up like a juicy steak. So Mogami did the first thing that came to mind.

"I bet my Admiral," she announced.

All three Abyssals gaped in shock at her as Mogami sat back at a plan well executed. Either the Re didn't call her bluff, or they did and they got beaten up by Kongo. Win-win, really. Not to mention, she'd used the time from the game to aim all twelve of her torpedo tubes. At this range, that would hurt.

[Call,] the Re finally growled.

The last card came up, and Mogami immediately began panicking inside. No spades! How could you go five cards without a spade?!

"Queen high," she announced, dropping her cards down.

[King high,] the Re smugly replied, showing a hand with said king, a queen, a jack, and a nine. Mogami quickly glanced at the dealer's cards to confirm that no, there was no ten. Dammit!

[We'll take the money,] the Ta announced, prompting Mogami to sigh and fork over the cash. [Go and inform your admiral that we will come to collect in three days.]

Nodding, Mogami stood and steamed off, trying not to look like she was hurrying. She was just out of sight of the Abyssals when a thought occurred to her. What would Admiral Goto think of this? Or Kongo?

At that thought, the heavy cruiser found herself wondering if Siberia was nice this time of year.

~o~

"I'm sorry, _what?!"_

Ooyodo gaped at the sight of a very nervous Furutaka flanked by a trio of Abyssal battleships, sure that she had misheard the heavy cruiser.

"Yeah, they said they were here to claim Admiral Goto," Furutaka answered, glancing nervously at the Abyssals to either side of her. "Said that Mogami bet him and lost, and now they're here to collect."

The pen in Ooyodo's hand snapped as she heard that. _'Damn that klutz!'_

Outwardly, she said "He's in his office," indicating the door behind her.

[Thanks,] the Re said.

"Are you insane?!" Furutaka hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "If they actually take him-!"

"Furutaka," Ooyodo cut her off with a shine of her glasses. "Rest assured, I am not insane, and have actually thought this through. First, neither of us is a match for one Abyssal battleship in close quarters, let alone three."

Furutaka opened her mouth, then closed it. "Okay, yeah, we'd be slaughtered."

"Second," Ooyodo continued. "Admiral Goto has proven himself able to tangle with shipgirls of high tonnages. He can handle himself."

"Right, I forgot about that..." Furutaka muttered.

"And third," the secretary ship finished. "This is around the time Kongo pops in for tea with him."

The sounds of a struggle followed right on the heels of that last statement, soon joined by the sound of shattering glass.

"So, what you're saying is, those Abyssals are already dead?" Furutaka confirmed.

At that moment, the wall bulged for a split second, before splintering, admitting Kongo with her foot planted in the Re's face and Goto driving his fist into the Ru's nose. Both looked more annoyed than actually angry as they drove the heads of the two Abyssals into the floor.

"Hmph. I thought they'd be more of a challenge," Kongo huffed.

"I'm more worried about that Ta," Goto stated serenely, adjusting his collar. There was the sound of a loud explosion outside. "Never mind."

Furutaka and Ooyodo shared knowing glances. "Yes," the light cruiser answered.


	208. Rule 656

**656\. Who thought it was funny to dress up every destroyer as Hoppo-chan for Halloween?**

"Now, you be careful, Hoppo-chan," Nagato said to her Abyssal charge, who was dressed up as Death Star-tan. "Watch out for bad things in the candy, and if a stranger tries to grab you?"

[Hit 'em in the Oompa-Loompas!] Hoppo chirped.

"Good girl. Off you go!"

Nagato sighed dreamily as she watched Hoppo-chan flounce off. Ah, motherhood was so nice! Closing the door, she went back to the kitchen to grab the bowl of candy she'd prepared, and then sat down in a chair by the door, playing a few rounds of Candy Crush on her phone while she waited for trick-or-treaters. Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long before the doorbell rang.

"Trick or treat!" the four girls of Desdiv 6 announced. To Nagato's delight, not only were all four dressed up as Hoppo-chan, Hibiki was even smiling just as brightly as her sisters. So cute! Only Tenryuu dressed up as Raiden and looming behind them saved the battleship from a full-blown cuteness overload.

"Aren't you a little old to be trick-or-treating?" she cooed, reaching down to ruffle Hibiki's hair as the destroyers took their candy.

With lightning speed, Hibiki's face collapsed into faux-seriousness. "Too old for free candy?" she growled. "Never!"

And with that, the candy was distributed and the destroyers were on the way, Nagato going back to her game. She only finished another level when the doorbell rang again.

"Trick or treat!" Murakumo, Fubuki, Hatsuyuki, and Shirayuki announced. Much like Desdiv 6, they were also dressed like Hoppo-chan. It was a little disconcerting. But still adorable!

"Take as much as you want!" Nagato cried. Naturally, they emptied the bowl before leaving.

She barely had time to get the next batch of candy ready before Kagero, Kasumi, Arare, and Shiranui rang the doorbell - also dressed as Hoppo-chan.

 _'Ah... this is bliss...'_

~o~

Hoppo-chan sighed as she made her way back home. She had mixed feelings about the night. On the one hand, her candy haul had been impressive. On the other, it seemed like every damn destroyer in Yokosuka was dressed as her. It was kind of creepy.

Still, candy outweighed creepiness, and on balance she considered the night a success. Hoppo opened the door, announcing herself to her surrogate mother.

[Nagato-mama, I'm ho-!]

The Abyssal froze as she beheld the sight of Nagato lying on the floor in a twitching blob, a blissful expression on her face and drool leaking out of her mouth to mix with the puddle of blood she laid in.

[Y'know, I probably should've seen this coming...] the Abyssal sighed.


	209. Rule 660

**An: Another bonus omake from Shaithan!**

 **Rule 660. The more impressionable or rowdy shipgirls may not visit Punk, Hard Rock, Hardcore, Metal or Goth concerts.**

Admiral Hartmann looked out over the Marine Base in Rostock. Currently the Deutsche Marine was hosting several different shipgirls from around the world. And up to now, the incidents had been rather small, mostly some barbs traded back and forth between some of the girls.

The sound of the door opening prompted him to look up, several girls, mostly destroyers, following Tenryuu into his office. He had to work hard to supress a grin. Tenryuu had a way with destroyers that was almost a miracle; they seemed to naturally flock to her and follow her around.

Tenryuu snapped to attention. "Admiral," she began.

Hartmann nodded. "What is it?" he asked in a friendly tone. So far there had been no real trouble that merited intervention beyond a disappointed reproach.

Tenryuu steeled herself. "I'd like to request leave for a group of us shipgirls to take in some sights in Germany we feel we should see," she stated.

Hartmann nodded, that made sense. The other navies had given the exchange shipgirls leave now and then to ferry them around the country. He saw no reason to deny the request. After all, the combined might of the European navies ensured that shipgirls in Germany generally didn't have to do as much as the Japanese or the Americans. And even they liked to show off their country whenever they found the time.

"Alirght, who will accompany you on the trip and how long do you think it will take?" he said.

Tenryuu didn't show any emotion as she answered. "Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well as U-666 want to come with us. They said someone else might join, too, but they don't know yet. It should start a week from next Tuesday and last until the following Monday."

Admiral Hartmann considered it. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had asked some months ago to get leave during the same time, something he had tentatively granted barring important circumstances like a large-scale abyssal assault. And as there were no indications that the Abyssals were on the move, he saw no reason to not grant the request for the exchange girls, too. He gave a short nod. "Very well, your leave is granted. Paperwork will be in the hands of SMS Kaiser, enjoy your trip."

Tenryuu saluted before leaving with her gaggle of destroyers.

Over the next few days the girls who wanted to go on leave were especially well-behaved, something Hartmann chalked up to them not wanting to jeopardize their leave.

Finally the day was there and Hartmann watched the girls lug around camping equipment to a group of surplus Bullis the Army had quietly sent their way. U-666, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tenryuu and Glowworm were the drivers. Hartmann had to grin. Besides the drivers and the Japanese exchange girls, several more U-boats, destroyers and some cruisers were on this trip, together with two battleships. He really hoped they had fun and brought back some nice stories to tell afterwards.

Aboard the convoy, the mood among the shipgirls could only be described as electric. "Alright ladies. Our convoy is ready to roll. Get comfy, we'll be driving for a while. First stop, Berlin!" U-666 announced through the radios. "Oh, and don't forget to prepare your outdoor clothing."

And with that, the convoy set out.

Hours later, they arrived in Berlin. They made some short expeditions to the Reichstag, Unter den Linden, Kudamm, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Victory Column and the Fernsehturm. But most of their time was either spent clothes shopping near the Alexanderplatz or waiting.

Later in the afternoon, as everyone rested from hours of walking around, Scharnhorst got a call. After a quick conversation, she snapped her phone off and gave a shrill whistle. "Okay, girls. Time to put on your new clothes. Tirpitz is inbound!" she declared.

Soon, a Robur coach filled with more shipgirls came into view. A girl that was the mirror image of Bismarck was the first to step out. Only where Bismarck was the perfect prim and proper Teutonic beauty, her sister was a slob. Her uniform was rumpled and wrinkled, her hair dyed black, and a cigarette dangled from her lips.

"Yo," she drawled. "You guys ready for 5 days of roughing it in Saxony?"

"Hell yes!" Johnston exclaimed. "We finally get to do something fun for once, not just these lame sightseeing trips!"

The others shared Johnston's sentiment. They all longed for more excitement, and this next leg of the trip would have excitement in spades.

Behind Tirpitz, another shipgirl stepped out, a statuesque, tall, redheaded woman. "Well, pleased to meet you," she said. "I do hope at least some of you recognize me."

Johnston's eyes got as big as saucers. "Trek-E!?" she exclaimed.

Enterprise grinned. "The one and only CVN-65!" she confirmed. "So, how many are we, anyway?"

"We are 31," Scharnhorst answered. "How many came with you?"

Tirpitz smirked. "35, including me and Bigger E," she said. "Bus is packed to capacity."

Gneisenau grinned. "Well, let's get going then."

"It will be a glorious outing!" Glowworm shouted excitedly.

"That it will. Hoist the flags, we're going to a festival!" Tirpitz ordered. The inconspicious packages that contained the flags were opened and the flags put out. "U-Satan, you're the leader of this wolfpack!"

The girls boarded their vehicles again, now with flags commemorating their proudest moments or other parts of their history, as well as the Anarchy flags. Enterprise grinned when she saw what flags had been raised. "HMS Glowworm - Ramming always works!" "Taffy 3 - We'll fight anything, especially battleships!" "Tenryuu - A heavenly dragon descends!" "U-Satan - Messenger of the Prince of Darkness!" and many others. Tirpitz' bus now had a flag with "Vikings inside" hoisted. And finally, the last Bulli showed a small sign on its bumper. "WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY!" Enterprise considered it fitting that Glowworm drove it.

The way down to Leipzig and from there to Roitzschjora was mostly calm.

In Leipzig, Tirpitz and Enterprise went and bought some hundred liters of beer and 10 dozen bottles of schnapps. They also pretty much cleared out the aisle with sausages and meat for grilling or cooking. They already had mead, homemade in Norway. When Johnston questioned the amounts, Tirpitz laughed. "We'll definitely have people coming over who'll want to bum a drink or ten. Or a snack. Also, we're shipgirls, I fully expect us having to haul in additional food by Thursday morning," she explained.

Johnston nodded. That made sense, Tirpitz and Enterprise alone could likely eat everything in one go if they really wanted or needed to.

The cashier's stare was worth gold in Johnston's eyes. Seeing a group of thirty girls hauling hundreds of kilos of food out of the store was definitely an unusual sight for him. Then again, he shouldn't have been too surprised. A group of 60 normal people would need several hundred kilos of food, too, if they wanted it to last for a week.

Once they had stowed everything away, the last leg of the journey began, a comparatively short ride to the airfield where the With Full Force would happen.

Enterprise made a round and gave everyone a ticket and Tirpitz reminded the girls that in any case of trouble, they should call for her. She didn't expect trouble, though, as she had instructed the festival makers that she would be arriving with a large group of foreign dignitaries.

Security had been informed and quickly ushered the group of shipgirls inside.

Once they were inside, they took a plot of land and planted their flags. Tirpitz gathered everyone. "Well girls, we are here. Let's party like there's no tomorrow!" she declared.

The assembled girls cheered loudly.

In Rostock, Admiral Hartmann felt a shiver run down his spine, as if someone had just decided to increase his paperwork load exponentially.

On Thursday evening, the first bomb hit the Admiral's desk. Local reporters reporting from the With Full Force Festival had spotted the shipgirls and broadcasted about it. Unfortunately for him, this had immediately led to national coverage, among other things of Tenryuu roughing up some bikers before becoming one of them and Johnston getting in a wrestling match.

Unfortunately for him things didn't stop there. Friday saw the Vikings make fun of the Jomsvikings and pointing out a bunch of historical inaccuracies, though the fallout from that was mostly the Vikings getting asked as to how to make things more accurate.

Far worse was that Enterprise had entered an eating contest and beat every single contestant one after another and proudly announced her name in the process. Admiral Holloway would again have to deal with the loss of the CVN-65. He didn't envy the man.

Another thing that had seen widespread applause had been Scharnhorst and Gneisenau getting in a fight with some Neonazis and loudly decrying their ideology as vile, something of a past that should just die and never be allowed to prosper again.

Unfortunately this had been the high point: there were photos of several destroyers drinking ungodly amounts of beer, Tirpitz had gone topless and Tenryuu had entered the stage to strip the guitarist of a Black Metal band of his spiked accessories. Worst of all, the crowd and even the band had cheered her Terminator impression on.

Saturday saw the girls, obviously having been awake the whole time, get up to more antics. Glowworm had proven that she could, in fact, haul 30 people around. Johnston and Hoel had gotten into brawls, in addition to all the girls being right in front of the stage where the action was.

The British girls had hijacked the stage late in the morning to give their own punk concert. Hartmann was sure that Cunningham would want to have words with them and him. Especially about the setlist. God Save The Queen and Anarchy In The UK were classics, but not really the kind of image the Royal Navy wanted to project.

Taking a closer look, Hartmann had to suppress a wince. The girls had all indulged in some drunken debauchery. One of them, the report didn't say who, had climbed a flagpole just to show she could. Another had deployed in a kiddie pool to show she could. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been mentioned for disturbing the nighttime peace. Glowworm had tried to acquire fireworks and with almost 100% certainty several of the girls had smoked weed.

Hartmann looked at all the reports and sighed. "There's going to be rules about this sort of behavior," he swore.

As if on cue, his telephone rang. Caller ID said Adm. Cunningham. Hartmann shook his head. "So many rules!" he vowed. And he would find a way to make Tirpitz pay. He was sure that this was somehow her idea.


	210. Rule 667

**AN: A joint omake between Shaithan and Sheo Darren!**

 **Rule 667. Very well, South Dakota, you built a chain-axe. It even works. Now you will have to get Tenryuu to part with it again.**

Admiral Briggs looked out over the Naval Base of Norfolk. Things had been quiet in the last few days. Some joint exercises between U-Boats and submarines had taken place, Yamato and Musashi had accompanied a delegation from Tokyo as escorts and the exchange program had seen a group of American destroyers sent to Japan in exchange for DesDiv6 and their big sister Tenryuu. So far the only incident had been when Tenryuu had threatened to hoist a Marine on the flagpole if he called her Team Mom again.

So, Admiral Briggs was quite surprised when DesDiv6 barged into his office without knocking, looking quite upset.

Iowa was trailing behind them, but even she was visibly shaken.

Briggs leaned forward in his chair. "I trust you have a good reason for barging in like that?" he said, though not unkindly

Akatsuki sniffed, Ikazuchi and Inazuma were obviously beyond words and Hibiki was stoically downing a clear liquid.

Briggs looked to Iowa, who was a bit better composed. "Well," he demanded.

Iowa shook herself. "It's Tenryuu," she began.

Briggs raised an eyebrow. "What happened to her? She wasn't scheduled for sorties and I have no angry Marine General calling me because she made one of his men the laughingstock of the Armed Services."

Enterprise and Missouri used the distraction to enter the office, dragging South Dakota with them.

Briggs, who knew his girls, fixed South Dakota with a hard stare while Iowa went and scooped up the destroyers. "South Dakota, what did you do with Tenryuu?" he wanted to know.

South Dakota gave him a questioning look. "I did nothing bad to her. I just gave her a new weapon, one that can cut through battleship armor like through butter," she explained in an obviously rehearsed speech.

Briggs raised an eyebrow. "Just a new weapon?" he asked skeptically. "What kind of weapon?"

South Dakota fidgeted. "An axe," she finally admitted.

"Not just any kind of axe, South Dakota built a functioning chain-axe that can dismember battleships. And she gave it to Tenryuu," Enterprise cut in, earning a glare from SoDak.

Briggs rubbed his temples. "You gave Tenryuu a chain-axe that can dismember battleships? Tenryuu?! Why?" he asked, fighting to keep his voice under control. Getting angry or axasperated wouldn't help anyway.

South Dakota shrugged. "Well, we talked a bit of shop when I was over in Japan, HMS Invincible supplied the idea and I began building it when I came back to the states. And when Tenryuu came here I gave her the axe I made for her."

"And why are the destroyers so shaken up?" Briggs wanted to know.

Hibiki spoke up from Iowa's embrace. "She looks like a drakon."

"A dragon? But she's always kind of draconic."

Hibiki shook her head. "Not lung, drakon."

Missouri came to the rescue. "What dear Hibiki means is that you should think less Chinese dragon and more Ancalagon," she explained.

Briggs paled. "Great. Just great!" he swore. "South Dakota, it's your job to get Tenryuu to give up that axe!" he ordered, only to be interrupted by the sound of shattering glass.

Going to his broken window, he saw the retreating form of South Dakota making full speed inland. "South Dakota! Get back here at once!" Briggs bellowed after the fleeing shipgirl, to no avail.

He turned to the other girls in his office. "Iowa, take care of DesDiv6. Enterprise and Missouri, you are to catch our wayward battleship and to escort her to her duty," he ordered before sitting down. He definitely wasn't paid enough for this. No one could be paid enough for this.

~o~

 **Shortly Afterwards**  
 _Norfolk_

The ship-girl base building was in shambles. South Dakota was stewing in the docks following her bright idea to lure Tenryuu back by getting DesDiv Six to go "Mamma, you'we scawing me..." The enraged light cruiser had absolutely smashed Dakota, scooped up the startled Akatsuki class sisters, and fled with her prizes before Iowa could react.

"Cunningham called," Admiral Briggs revealed as he turned off his cell phone. "He's sent someone who can stop Tenryuu."

"Who did he send?" Iowa asked.

~o~

 **Earlier**  
 _Scapa Flow_

Ship-girl rooms tended to be packed to the brim with various kick-knacks collected during the mad rush to acclimatize & enjoy the modern era. But this particular room was surprisingly spartan. Various flags of the United Kingdom adorned one wall. An overflowing but neatly-packed bookshelf filled the opposite wall. There was an altar with a crucifix. And that was about it.

"Good day, Thunder Child," Admiral Cunningham greeted the sole occupant of the room.

The British ship-girl genuflected upon her right knee, right hand pressed upon her left breast. She was wearing simple clothes.

"Hail, Milord Admiral!" she greeted. "Hail, Milady!" she respectfully bid King George V, whom she considered to be her Admiral's consort (and rightly so). "How may this humble knight be of service?"

"Our American allies have requested our help," Cunningham explained.

"What have our former colonials gotten themselves into?"

Cunningham tried not to sigh. The torpedo ram ironclad was a product of her times, a golden age when Britannia ruled the waves, when the sun never set on British soil, with a huge helping of an Arthurian knight in shining armor due to how the perception of this world shaped her.

The French ship-girls succinctly said it best: ' _Le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche',_ 'the knight without fear and beyond reproach'.

So when Thunder Child referred to the Americans as 'former colonials', she did not mean it insultingly, merely matter-of-fact.

"The Japanese light cruiser Tenryuu has gone berserk," George said.

"Tenryuu?" Thunder Child matched the name to a face. "Oh, yes, that one-eyed Oriental who showed some promise with the blade..."

"She actually has two eyes," George corrected.

"Eh? So why does she hide one?"

"...I have no idea," admitted the British fast battleship.

"Anyway, Tenryuu's somehow gone and turned into a dragon," Cunningham continued.

Thunder Child's face lit up like her boilers. "A dragon, you say?" she repeated.

George produced a tablet. The screen showed Tenryuu standing atop a mountain of dead Abyssals. Huddled around the feet of the raging Japanese light cruiser were a quartet of little girls.

"As you can see, she has taken DesDiv Six hostage," said George.

"Nay, Milady," averred Thunder Child as her knowing eye roved across the scene. "These children are not her hostages. They are her hoard."

"Her what?" Cunningham asked.

"Dragons collect things that they find precious. It stands to reason that young Tenryuu gathered these destroyers, who are closest to her heart, as her hoard."

"As I thought, you are an expert on dragons," said Cunningham.

"I am no Sir George," Thunder Child admitted. "But I have read up on draconic literature. Though the books of these days are rather lacking..."

She took a moment to glance at the Inheritance Cycle of Christopher Paolini, which she had powered through for the sake of completion but afterwards left to collect to dust for being a waste of time.

"I shall do my utmost," she promised Cunningham. "What are my orders, Milord Admiral?"

"You are to disable Tenryuu and rescue her... hoard. Do **not** kill her," Cunningham emphasized.

Thunder Child tipped her black-haired head. "I will restrain myself. It is clear to me that she does this not out of greed or violence, but out of love for her flock." She frowned. "New England is several days hard sailing. We will not make it in time." Then she brightened. "Are we going to take one of your iron rocs?" She so loved flying and had been petitioning to learn how to fly an RAF fighter jet. Her request had been denied, as had been her offer to mentor ship-girls in the arts of jousting and ramming.

"No," Cunningham responded.

"Then how shall we come to the aid of our former colonials in time?"

Admiral Cunningham assumed a solemn expression akin to an Anglican priest fortifying the soldiery before a fateful battle. "Releasing control art restriction to level zero," he stated.

Thunder Child released a long hiss of pleasure as her coal-firing boilers ignited explosively.

"Aaahhh... Releasing Control Art Restriction Systems three... two... one, approval of Situation A recognized. Commencing the Cromwell invocation. Ability restrictions lifted for limited use until the enemy has been rendered silent."

The torpedo ram grinned. "The game is afoot..."

~o~

Thetis had been relaxing in the Olympic swimming pool when the chlorine-treated water began churning. "Eh? Eeehhh!" squealed the unfortunate submarine as the entire pool slid back on side rollers to reveal a vertical launch pad hidden beneath it.

Deep below Thetis and the pool, complex machinery began equipping the ramrod straight knight with her Outfit. First came the padded undershirt that cushioned the unkind weight of her panoply and provided a last line of defense against penetrating arrows. Then came her chain mail undershirt, followed by a full set of plate armor.

Big iron upperworks rose out of the structure attached to her back. Funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot through with fire. Her superstructure blended the low-riding, flying deck-topped turtleback hull of the protected torpedo ram HMS _Polyphemus_ , the historical inspiration for H. G. Wells, and the _Canopus_ class pre-dreadnought battleships that most illustrations attributed to her.

Her armament came next. The spar torpedo-tipped long lance that served as her ram. The plough-like heater shield emblazoned with the naval ensign of the United Kingdom. Her main anti-ship batteries of BL 12-inch/35 caliber wire-wound Mk VIII cannons and QF 6-inch/40 caliber guns, secondary 12-pounder quick-firing guns & 3-pounder guns & four-barrel Nordenfelt 1" guns, and submerged tubes for two different types of torpedoes, 14" & 18" Whitehead weapons.

Her original harness was black like twilight shorn of stars and moon. This black knight was not evil, merely practical. Black-painted armor resisted rust and allowed her to be one with the night.

But now her Outfit gleamed like purest purifying silver that drove back the darkness like the dawn. For the times called for a White Knight. And she answered the call with pennants flying.

"(Five... four... three... two... one...)"

Her thrusters belched fire. Electromagnetic catapults helped fling her upwards. She punched through the sky, trailing white rings of violently-displaced air as she rapidly left the sound of her passing behind her.

Thetis, struggling to keep herself from sinking, heard a mighty voice make itself heard over the thundering din of its departure.

 **"(Thunder Child is go!)"**

~o~

 _Across the Channel_

"We have detected a high speed bogey launching from England," reported the officer in charge of the French defense system that kept a lookout for possible nuclear launches.

"Where is it aimed?"

"...North America."

~o~

 _From Russia, With Love_

"Let it go," ordered the Russian general as he watched the object streak across the radar. "The British have informed us about her."

"What is it?" a mystified technician asked.

The dour commander actually cracked a smile. "They called her 'hope'."

~o~

 _Atlantic Ocean_

Tenryuu hadn't gone Abyssal. She retained full control of herself. Certain draconic traits were merely elevated to the point of flanderization.

She was, also and admittedly, currently more terrifying than the very dead Abyssals she'd turned into her very own Lonely Mountain to serve as a makeshift roost for herself and her precious chicks.

"Tenryuu," sobbed three of the four members of DesDiv Six. "Please stop..."

"I'm out," grunted Hibiki as she tossed away her empty bottle of vodka. Her clear blue eyes teared up as well. "Tenryuu..."

"Don't worry, girls," Tenryuu crooned. "No one will hurt you anymore... There is no one stronger than me, Tenryuu-sama! I will protect you!"

A distant star on the horizon twinkles. Her enhanced senses cue her to an approaching menace whose arrival was heralded by-

"Is that music?"

For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and white, the flames streaming from her central parts, her ventilators and funnels spouting fire. She came, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a plow tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge waves of foam, sending out douches of blinding spray as she steamed headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

"Tally ho!"

[Blast-propelled Armored Yeomanry Assault Drive (BAYARD) at full power. Armor-piercing Strike Combined Arms Long-range Ordnance Negator (ASCALON) activated.]

She had the barest idea of what those words meant. But she could see her target on her high-speed visor. And she knew the green icon meant that she was locked on.

"For Queen and Country!"

And Thunder Child Kai Ni rammed Tenryuu.

The result was too violent to be called an explosion.

~o~

"Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!"

This Thunder Child grunted as she punched Tenryuu again and again, her gauntlet driven by small but potent explosives to act as a jack-hammer, her other hand gripping the front of the other ship-girl's tattered tunic.

Tenryuu's response was to headbutt her. Given Thunder Child wore a full helmet, this was a badly-advised act of desperation that only served to worsen Tenryuu's concussion.

The British knight grinned. "Nice headbutt... now, let me reply..."

Tenryuu's skull rang like the ring of bells at Westminster Abbey during a change ringing. "Guuuhhh... aye em FIYAH ... ey um DESS..."

Running out of options, the desperate Japanese ship-girl drove her knee in between Thunder Child's legs.

"Hah! I've always worn a cup to protect against underwater impacts!"

Before Thunder Child could retaliate with assuredly painful results, explosions festooned the superstructure of her Kai Ni Rigging. Out of the corner of her eye the British ship-girl could see a trembling Akatsuki training guns and torpedo tubes on her.

"Stop it!" Akatsuki shone her searchlight into the menacing slit of Thunder Child's visor. "Stop hurting Tenryuu, you meanie!"

Her sisters formed up beside her, a lightweight battle line, shaky but determined to come to the rescue of their 'destroyer flotilla leader'.

"Yeah!" Ikazuchi yelled in support of her eldest sister. "Or else you'll have to fight us, too!"

"We won't let you hurt her anymore," blubbered Inazuma.

"(Enough)," Hibiki grunted in Russian.

A bruised fist thumped uselessly into the cheek plate of the surprised Thunder Child's helmet.

"Rib 'em 'lun," slurred the bruised & battered Tenryuu, eye patch torn off to reveal a perfectly normal eye matching her exposed one. "Fate meee, u pond..."

Within the concealment of her full helmet, Thunder Child smiled to herself. "I could break your body," she admitted. "But I could never break your spirit."

She lowered her fist and released her opponent. "I yield to you, Tenryuu! You may take the spoils of war!"

DesDiv Six swarmed their astonished minder. "Tenryuu!" they cried as they supported the punch-drunk light cruiser. "Tenryuu!"

"Y'kay, kiddos?" she clucked as it became her turn to be mothered for once. "S'ry fer wollying ya..."

Meanwhile Thunder Child approached the source of trouble, which Tenryuu had dropped during the course of their momentous battle.

[Blood for the Blood God!] uttered the speakers of the chain-ax. [Skulls for the Skull Throne!]

Thunder Child's boot crashed down upon the insidious weapon, her metaphysical weight reducing it to silent wreckage.

"Never," she vowed. "For God is my defender."

With that said, Thunder Child turned to escort the laughing Tenryuu and squeaking DesDiv Six back to base.

And a new day dawned on Norfolk.


	211. Rule 669

**669\. Who ever replaced Desdiv 6's clothing with those lewd abominations, please step forward now before Tenryuu becomes** ** _really_** **annoyed.**

 **AN: If you really want to know what those outfits were, look up the Warship Girls counterparts for the Akatsuki class.**

Tenryuu gaped as she stared at the outfits her girls were showing her. Now she understood why they were still in their pajamas at noon.

"What the hell is this?" she breathed, fingering the white long-sleeved - and very, very short - sailor top.

"W-We don't know," Akatsuki answered. "We just woke up this morning to find our regular clothes gone, and these things in their place."

Tenryuu held up the top, mentally picturing how much torso it exposed. The answer was very clearly "way too fucking much".

"And no skirts, pants, anything like that?" she confirmed.

Hibiki and Akatsuki shook their heads.

"At least you and Inazuma get stockings..." Ikazuchi grumbled.

"Speaking of which, where is Inazuma?" Tenryuu wondered.

"Closet," Hibiki deadpanned.

"Alright then," Tenryuu growled, tossing the sailor top on her bed and grabbing her sword. "I've got a pervert to catch."

~o~

"How dare you!" Nagato shouted. "To think I would sully such pure cinnamon rolls like that! Destroyers are for cuddles, not lewding."

"Okay..." Tenryuu drawled, slowly backing away from the battleship at the look of blushing bliss on her face.

~o~

"What? No! I have _some_ standards, you know!" Iku protested.

Tenryuu raised one eyebrow in a pure expression of skepticism.

"Besides, I saw what Tatsuta did to Harder, and then there's what Kongo did to me a while back," the lewdmarine continued. "No way am I trying a stunt like that on your girls."

Ah, that made far more sense.

~o~

"Oh, come one!" Aoba snapped. "Why am I always the first one to get blamed?!"

"You're the third person I talked to," Tenryuu snapped, electing not to bring up all the other stunts the heavy cruiser had pulled.

"Regardless, I haven't done anything in the last three days! Now shoo, I've got ten blog posts to write today."

"Wait, in the last three-" the light cruiser started before getting shoved out the door. "Days?" She frowned. "I should probably drop by the Admiral's office and let him know about that..."

~o~

"I just don't get it!" Tenryuu complained as she paced in front of her uncharacteristically worried sister. "All of the usual suspects are denying they did anything! And worse, I believe them!"

"Worst-case scenario, we can buy them new outfits," Tatsuta pointed out. "Though that doesn't solve the problem of how someone got in and out so stealthily."

The sisters paused, and looked at each other.

"Do you think Harder could have...?"

"Not after what I did to her," Tatsuta dismissed. "Not to mention she's back in the states."

"What about Sendai..."

"She likes lewding _herself_ up, not others."

The two light cruisers hummed in thought for a few minutes before Tenryuu threw up her hands. "Well, I've got nothing. You?"

"I'm afraid not," Tatsuta sighed. "I think it might be time to go to the Admiral about this."

~o~

"Yesssss..." Kisaragi cackled as she watched the stumped light cruisers. "They'll never suspect me. Not in a million years! And sooner or later you girls are going to have to put on those outfits! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

 _"Hey..."_ the Akatsuki on her camera footage said. _"Shouldn't we get Inazuma out of the closet?"_

Hibiki let out a loud snort, as did Kisaragi, prompting the former's sisters to shoot funny looks her way.

 _"N-Nothing,"_ the destroyer denied. _"I shall check on Inazuma."_

Standing, Hibiki walked over to the closet and stuck her head in - and almost immediately ran back out, her eyes frantic.

 _"S-She's gone!"_

Kisaragi frowned as Akatsuki and Ikazuchi panicked. Odd. How could she have gotten out of that closet without anyone noticing? There was a vent there, but-

The Mutsuki-class destroyer froze in realization, right as a quiet thump sounded behind her. Slowly, she turned around to see Inazuma in an adorable purple onesie with short sleeves and pants and bunny ears on the hood. And she was looking _right at her._

"Oh, crap," Kisaragi muttered as Inazuma grinned and began stalking towards her.


	212. Rule 671

**AN: Last guest chapter for a while, I promise! And if you're wondering why the subs are male, blame KCQ.**

 **Rule 671. While amusing, setting up Stewart and Harder for a blind date will not end well as several Clemsons and Gatos can attest to.**

 **Nansan Giro Giro Restaurant**  
 _Oahu, Hawaii_

"Mou... ah, I mean, um... uuuhhh..."

Stewart tried not to fidget with her fancy clothes. The green cocktail dress not only revealed even more of her suntanned body than her admittedly short sailor uniform (both General Issue with short pants and serafuku with brief skirt), but felt even flimsier than a yukata, which she had learned to wear without embarrassment and underwear.

It was really nice of Clemson and her other sisters to go out of their way and set her up for a blind date with a nice American boy in this lovely restaurant. And she was doubly thankful for her Japanese sempai taking time out of their limited free time to escort her to this place and wish her luck.

"I have to do my best," she reminded herself. "I have to relax... This is a date... kore wa deito... deito..."

"Excuse me," grunted a grumpy boy's voice from behind her. "But are you my blind date?"

Stewart nearly shot off her chair. "H-hai! I mean, yes, sumimasen!" she corrected herself as she spun around, her face red from her verbal gaffe- and then she went white as she saw just who her partner for the night was.

~o~

Nearby, hidden from Stewart while retaining direct line of sight on her sister, Clemson glared Mk 8 torpedoes at the interlopers.

"What are you doing here, pig-boat?" she demanded of the wolf pack of boys in USN uniforms.

"I could ask the same of you, tin can," Gato snapped back at the leader of the gaggle of destroyers. They might all be Americans, but destroyers and submarines still did not like each other much.

"You first."

"Ladies first. And what gives with the IJN?" And Gato shot a mocking look at the two Japanese destroyers present.

Asashio frowned but otherwise refused to rise to the bait. "Ooshio and I are here to support Hyakuni-chan on her blind date," stated the serious-faced ship-girl.

"Hyawho?" Gato repeated. Behind him, Wahoo palmed his face.

"It's the name the Japanese gave to Stewart when they raised and recovered her." Clemson still didn't like the Japanese, but Asashio and Ooshio were Stewart's friends and they were also nice girls. So the sisterhood of _Clemson_ class destroyers took pains to be civil to the Kuchikukan.

"RAMP is on a date?" Gato repeated. "With who?"

"Shut up, Gato," Clemson warned. Stewart was sensitive and unstable when it came to her other names.

"You still haven't answered our question," Ooshio pointed out.

"Bite me, flattie," Gato told her.

"Jerk!" hissed Ooshio, who was sensitive about her chest.

"We're here to keep an eye on Harder," admitted Hake as he tried to play peacemaker between the destroyers and his brother submarines. "He's due for a date here."

Asashio and Ooshio shuddered at the mention of the Destroyer Killer.

"He's got good taste," observed Edsall. "Naka-chan will like this restaurant."

Albacore grimaced. "He's not with Naka," revealed the White Devil of the Pacific. "We persuaded him to go on a blind date with an American girl."

Four-pipers, Tokugata Kuchikukan, and submarines paused.

"Wait, Hit 'Em Again/Destroyer Killer is also on a blind date here?!" Clemson and Asashio respectively exclaimed. "Who is he dating?!"

Their answer came by way of a primal scream of fear and loathing from Stewart.

~o~

"DIE, YOU F*CKING TRAITOR!"

Confronted by the destroyer that had helped sink him, Harder reverted to instinct, hurling a full spread of six Mk 14 torpedes at his ambusher.

"KISAMA!"

Fast as lightning, Stewart snapped out of her initial astonishment, snatched a steak knife from the table, and sliced apart the incoming torpedoes in a whirlwind of motion and steel.

"KUSO AMERIKAJIN!" she yelled in Japanese as she reverted to Hyakuni, her Kaibokan mindset of PB-102. "(I'll finish off what Nijuuni-chan started!)"

"BRING IT, BITCH!" Harder bellowed as he brandished a broken wine bottle.

~o~

Clemson and Gato gaped as their younger siblings attempted to shank each other.

"Stewart has superb skill with the sword," Edsall approved. "I should spar with her."

"Mess her up, Harder!" urged Albacore, Barb, Cavalla, Darter, Dace, Flasher, Growler, Grunion, Trigger, Tunny, and Wahoo.

"Kick his ass, Stewart!" cheered Paul Jones, John D. Edwards, Alden, Whipple, Barker, Parrott, Bulmer, John D. Ford, Pope, Peary, and Pillsbury.

"(Do your best, Hyakuni!)" urged Asashio and Ooshio.

"This is going to end in tears," Hake sighed as the destroyers and submarines began trading threatening glares.

"Sumimasen~"

Asashio and Ooshio shivered. They recognized that voice. So did the American ship-girls and ship-boys, for there were very many ship-girls and ship-boys but only one Idol of the Fleet.

"I couldn't help but hear that you are trying to have Hyakuni-chan netorare Harder-kun away from me~"

Normally Naka was a happily-bouncing orange basketball. Now, though, with her hair clips doffed to let her surprisingly long brunette hair hang down and her petite body giving off an unearthly glow, she rather resembled the Abyssal Light Cruiser Princess.

Flanking her were her sisters Sendai and Jintsuu. The night battle maniac shinobi was uncharacteristically serious and her samurai-themed sister was equally stern.

"Serious Mode Sendai Sentai," gasped Asashio.

The only one not intimidated was Edsall. The blonde destroyer plunked herself squarely between the enraged Sendai class light cruiser and Stewart & Harder.

"This is for the happiness of my cute sister Stewart," she proclaimed while drawing her longsword for a reprise of her last stand off Java. "You! Shall! Not! Pass!"

Her fearless proclamation spurred her Clemson class sisters, the Gato class with whom they had been ready to trade gunfire and torpedoes with just a minute earlier, and even Asashio and Ooshio to stand alongside her.

Behind them, Stewart and Harder had lost their weapons and were now wrestling across the floor tearing each other's clothes off.

"Give me back my man!" Yandere-mode Naka screamed as she and her sisters charged Edsall's army.


	213. Rule 674

**Rule 674. To Akashi and Yuubari: I don't know how or why but we're going to have to confiscate all the combustible lemons that you made.**

"Package for you, Yuubari!" Akashi announced as the light cruiser swept into their shared lab.

"Thanks!" came the reply. She quickly tore open the cardboard box, beholding a... bunch of lemons? What?

Frowning, Yuubari took out the note that had been in the box alongside the fruit.

 _"Hey, Yuubari!"_ it read. _"Special delivery from San Diego by your good friend Phoenix! It's a little project I've hit a bit of a stumbling block on, so I figured I'd send it to you guys and get some more brainpower on it. I included my research notes and some samples, so go wild!_

 _P.S. Don't eat the lemons."_

Yuubari put down the letter and rummaged around in the bottom, pulling out a stack of papers almost three inches tall. She quickly began rifling through them, a shit-eating grin spreading wider and wider with each page.

"Hey, Akashi," she called out. "How do you feel about lemons?"

~o~

The shipgirls of Yokosuka had long learned to be intensely suspicious of any food left out for anyone to grab. _Especially_ if it looked delicious. Besides the Gummy Bear incident, there were multiple incidents of the... less than stellar chefs among them leaving out failed dishes, as well as that time some Finnish shipgirls had dropped by to teach mine warfare and left behind a bowl of salmiakki. No less than eight different destroyer girls had completely sworn off chocolate with that incident.

As such, the bowl of lemons had drawn a small crowd of suspicious but tempted shipgirls. That they had what looked like grenade pins attached didn't help.

"You go first," Kaga stated.

"Fuck no," Akagi snapped in a rare moment of heat. "I have been burned way too many times. Ikazuchi, you go."

"Heck no!" the destroyer denied. "I'm adventurous, not stupid! Kagerou, you eat it!"

"Nope!" the other destroyer denied. "I know you all think I'm crazy-"

"You are!"

"But I'm not _that_ crazy!"

The crowd all glared at one another, before glancing back at the lemons.

"Well, someone's got to do it," Takao pointed out.

"Oh, hey, lemons," Tenryuu cut in as she walked by. The light cruiser grabbed a lemon and took a bite, skin and all. The shipgirls around her waited with bated breath as she chewed - and then she straight-up breathed fire.

"HOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTT!" she screeched as she immediately bolted for outside and the ocean.

For a moment, everyone just stood around staring, before glancing back at the lemons.

"Well, fuck," Musashi said, speaking what was on everyone's minds. "What do we even do with these?"

~o~

"Success!" Yuubari whooped, pumping her fist into the air. "The combustible lemons work! Suck it, Vanguard!"

"Great!" Akashi chirped. "Now what?"

"Now?" Yuubari grinned. "Now we make more so I can set Abyssals on fire with _lemons_. It's the perfect- Did Kongo just take one of them?"

~o~

"Admiraaaaal~!" Kongo sang as she flounced back into his office. "I got a lemon for our tea! Here, let me just cut it up-"

The knife bit into the lemon, and promptly squirted lemon juice all over the front of Kongo's uniform, lighting it on fire. Oh, and the knife was on fire, too.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Kongo screamed as she suddenly found herself on fire.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Goto screamed as he watched his girlfriend catch fire.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Yuubari screamed as she arrived just too late to stop it.


	214. Rule 675

**675: No more attempting to raid the Admiral's stash of drinks.**

"Ugh..." Admiral Goto groaned. "What a day..."

Plopping down on the couch in his quarters, Goto unbuttoned his uniform and reached over to a small cabinet tucked between it and the wall. He'd had to deal with Mogami blowing up somebody's Cresta, a turkey shipped from the United States getting loose in the base, Yamato and Enterprise nearly causing a riot among the destroyers, Kiyoshimo trying her latest harebrained stunt to become a battleship, a lovers' spat between Yahagi and HMS Enterprise over Skype that had sent shipgirls scurrying, and dozens of calls from angry politicians calling to complain about such things as Shimakaze's attire, Junyou's latest drunken bender, Naka's Youtube channel, and Musashi's old AV career.

And all before lunch, too.

Normally, he'd have a nice warm battleship girlfriend waiting at home ready to de-stress him and fend off anyone trying to disturb him, but Kongo was deployed at the moment. Which left only one recourse. Alcohol.

Finally, he had to resort to turning around to get at the cabinet, only to find it a jumbled mess, the doors wide open. Someone had been in his alcohol stash and likely taken something. Growling, he threw open the cabinets and began unloading bottles to find out what had been taken.

As it turned out, he'd misread the situation. Joining the bottles of Kentucky bourbon, high-priced sake, and Californian wines were several bottles of high-quality vodka, jugs of what he was pretty sure were fuel-grade moonshine, and-

"Is that a torpedo on there?" he muttered as he looked over the milk jug. Probably not a good idea to drink it, then.

All of the evidence pointed to one, inescapable but thoroughly confusing situation: several someones were actually sneaking into his quarters to _put alcohol in his hidden stash_. And as much as he wanted to thank his anonymous benefactors, the evidence still pointed to at least several shipgirls building stills. Very illegal stills.

Ah, whatever. He'd deal with it tomorrow. In the meantime, he took one of the bottles of vodka and popped the top.

"Bottoms up," he muttered.

~o~

"You wanted to see me, Admiral?" Junyou slurred slightly as she threw open the door to Admiral Goto's office.

The man in question winced at the loud bang from where he was laying his head on his desk. "Not so loud, please," he groaned.

Junyou blinked, taking in the sight of what was clearly her Admiral suffering from an apocalyptic hangover. "Right, right, quiet. So, what's up?"

"I have stills on this base," Admiral Goto stated. "I want them gone. I don't care how, I just want them gone."

Junyou grinned and licked her lips. However she liked, huh?

Across the base, seven shipgirls watching over their brewing equipment suddenly felt a cold shudder run down their spines.


	215. Rule 680

**680\. The same applies for the rounds of "hot potato" played with a live fragmentation grenade.**

Deep within the bowels of the naval base at Taranto, two words were uttered, two words that sent chills down the spines of any sane senior officer.

"I'm bored."

Oklahoma glanced up from the romance novel she was reading. These Italians certainly knew their way around drama. "And?" she drawled.

"I'm _bored!"_ Nevada repeated with more heat. "And we should do something about it!"

"What's this 'we' shit, Kemosabe?" Oklahoma shot back as she turned back to her book. "I'm doing quite fine, thank you."

"Did someone say they were bored?"

"Gah!" Oklahoma yelped as she saw O'Bannon hanging from above her. "How did you-!"

"I'm from the future," the destroyer grinned, before chuckling and shaking her head. "Nah, I'm just fucking with ya. I broke in. They really need to make these vents smaller."

Oklahoma's face scrunched up in thought, while Nevada turned a pleading look on the destroyer. "Please tell me you have something we can do!"

O'Bannon's grin grew outright _demented_. She reached into her pocket, and slapped a round device on the nearest flat surface.

"What do you say we gather up some more battleships and play a game of hot potato?" she said as she fingered the pin on the grenade.

~o~

"Alright, here's how this works," O'Bannon said to the circle of battleships. Besides an eager Nevada and a reluctant Oklahoma, they had also dragged in Lorraine, Jean Bart, Valiant, Littorio, and Cavour. "I pull the pin, and you have to pass it around. Whoever's holding it when it explodes loses the round."

"Wait, explodes?!" Jean Bart demanded.

"Why do you think I only went to the battleships?" O'Bannon pointed out. "Trust me, you guys'll be fine."

"But-!"

Jean Bart's protests were cut off by a grenade bouncing off her chest and into her hands.

"Game's started!"

The French battleship yelped, tossing the grenade in a random direction. That turned out to be towards Nevada. The American then tossed it to Cavour, who tossed it to Valiant, at which point it exploded.

All the shipgirls present waited with bated breath for the smoke to clear. All breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Valiant standing there with nothing worse than a bit of a cough from the smoke and some holes in her outfit.

"Ack..." she gagged. "That was fun!"

~o~

"Ladies," Warspite stated to the other two girls seated in the small storage area they were meeting in. "I'm sure you've noticed what happened to your sisters."

"Of course," Roma replied, pushing up her glasses.

"And she didn't look happy about it," Richelieu grumbled.

"Considering the eyeful those sailors got? I don't blame her," Roma agreed.

"You'll be pleased to note that I've identified the culprit," Warspite continued. "A game of hot potato, only with grenades instead of spuds. And the supplier? O'Bannon."

Roma's face immediately darkened, while Richelieu shot an inquiring glance at the British battleship. "How did you find that out?"

~o~

 _Warspite took a step back as Oklahoma ranted and raved, tearing her ruined uniform to shreds in the process._

 _"I can't believe her!" she howled. "I have to replace my clothes, and Nevada's, too, because otherwise she'll just go into battle_ naked! _All over a stupid game!_ _Damn that potato-loving_ bitch! _"_

~o~

"I was at the right place at the right time," Warspite technically didn't lie. "In any case, I say we voice our... displeasure with our sisters' choice of activities."

"Agreed," came the reply from the other two battleships.


	216. Rule 686

**Rule 686. Stop teasing the Flower and River classes already. Yes they're slow and lightly armed but they can and are perfectly willing to dogpile and force-feed you their depth charges.**

USS Southerland, Gearing-class destroyer, let an ugly scowl shift over her face as she looked over the Royal Navy frigates and corvettes steaming close to the merchant ships. So slow, and with such piddly armament; in her opinion, they didn't deserve to be called warships. At least the DEs had torpedoes! Not to mention were four knots faster than the Rivers.

And though she wouldn't admit it, a big part of her problem was the fact that she was stuck here, in the cold, stormy Atlantic and mosquito-ridden Norfolk, rather than balmy San Diego and the Pacific.

She sensed a shipgirl coming up behind her, and wrenched her gaze away from the small escorts. "Oh, hey, Haida. What's up?"

"I see those looks you're giving the Flowers and Rivers," the Canadian destroyer said without preamble.

A twinge of shame jolted through Southerland, and she hung her head.

"Look, don't worry, it's fine. Most of the Battles had the same attitude when they were summoned," Haida said soothingly. "Just trust me. Sooner or later - and I dearly hope later - those girls are going to show you exactly how much warship they are."

Southerland nodded, if a tad uncertainly. How much could they do with one or two measly little 4" guns? Not even dual-purpose, even!

"Alright," Haida finished, clapping the American destroyer on her shoulder. "You keep an eye out for those planes. You're the only one who can- AUGH!"

"Haida!" Southerland shouted, grabbing the Canadian destroyer as she slumped to the water. A large shell wound had been gouged into her side, and yet there weren't any surface combatants anywhere nearby. She'd looked!

[Heh heh heh...]

Southerland whirled around to see... submarines. Three Abyssal submarines rising out of the water, and yet there were like no submarines she'd ever seen. Each had what looked for all the world like the head of a Re-class' tail grafted to their backs, a heavy gun poking out of the mouth. And one of them was smoking.

"Damn you...!" she growled, reaching down to release torpedoes. A trio of shell splashes bracketing her quickly put an end to that action.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Southerland swore. "Now what?"

"Leave me."

Southerland looked at Haida like she'd sprouted bunny ears and starting dancing the can-can. "What? Hell no I'm not leaving you!"

"Dammit, Southerland, leave me!" Haida shouted back. "I took a boiler hit, I'm not outrunning these things! I can buy you enough time to get some range on these bastards!"

"No!" Southerland retorted, grabbing Haida by the collar and pulling her close. "No, I refuse to believe that there's nothing we can do! We're both getting out of this alive and intact, you hear me?"

She froze as a muzzle pressed to the back of her head.

"Stupid optimistic American..." Haida grumbled. "Now we're both gonna die."

Southerland couldn't refute that. All she could do was close her eyes, and pray. A prayer interrupted by the sound of a kazoo.

"What the-"

"Well, I guess you're seeing my girls in action sooner than I thought," Haida remarked.

The three Abyssals all turned to face this new threat - and all somehow paled as they beheld a dozen River-class frigates and Flower-class corvettes charging at them with murder in their eyes and fistfuls of depth charges.

"You hurt big sis Haida!" they shouted as one, aside from the girl in the back still playing the kazoo.

Southerland watched in open-mouthed amazement as the new submarines were run down and force-fed depth charges until they exploded, then processed their battle cry.

"Wait, what?!"

"Don't ask me how it happened," Haida grumbled good-naturedly. "But the Halifax girls decided to adopt me as their older sister, and it kinda snowballed from there."


	217. Rule 692

**Rule 692. Shipgirls are not allowed to use Harder as a threat to scare misbehaving destroyers straight.**

Hoel gaped at the scene in front of her. Take three days off to go hang with the buffalo on the Santa Catalina islands, and what happens?

Apparently, Kidd joins up with Johnston and Heermann to dress up as pirates and go start looting and pillaging the battleship dorms. Considering they were all out on gunnery practice with Edsall today, there was quite an impressive haul.

"Whoa..." Kidd breathed as she held up a massive black lace bra. "So this is what Missouri wears." The destroyer held it up to her eyes, each cup practically engulfing her head. "I hope I get this big when I grow up..."

"Hey, guys!" Heermann cut in as she popped up from behind her bags of loot, festooned in gold necklaces and what looked like a very expensive pair of sunglasses. "I'm Revenge!"

"Wow, this stuff is fancy," Johnston muttered through cheeks stuffed full of cheese.

That was quite enough for Hoel, who loudly cleared her throat to get their attention. "What are you doing?"

"We're playing pirates!" Johnston replied.

"I can see that!" Hoel snapped. "And I expect you all to knock it off, or-"

"Or you'll what, Miss White Hat?" Kidd sneered, sauntering up and staring her in the eye. "Whine and lecture, like you usually do?"

"No," Hoel answered, a wide smirk spreading across her face. "I'll get Harder to pay you all a visit at night. Not tonight, of course. Just... sometime soon."

The Fletcher was quite gratified to see her sisters pale and start shaking, and even Kidd looked nervous despite the skepticism on her features.

"You're bluffing," the other Fletcher decided. "I know Harder! She doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do!"

"Well, good thing for me that she likes hunting destroyers and eating ice cream," Hoel countered. "And that I've got a gallon tub of Ben and Jerry's burning a hole in my fridge."

"S-She does," Heermann shakily confirmed.

Kidd audibly gulped before sagging in defeat. "What do you want, then?"

"For you to put all of this back," Hoel answered. "And make an apology to the battleships for this stunt."

"Apologize for what?"

Kidd, Johnston, and Heermann whirled around and paled even further when they saw California and West Virginia behind them, the former looking thunderously at the piece of cheese still half-eaten in Johnston's hands.

"My cheese!"

~o~

"How do you guys do it?"

Sendai, Tenryuu, and Kinu all glanced at each other, then back to Noshiro. "Pardon?"

"How do you guys manage your destroyers?" the light cruiser demanded again.

Sendai frowned. "Wait, isn't Agano the one who's supposed to be leading destroyers? I thought you were assisting in the logistics department."

"I am! But Agano keeps foisting them off on me!" Noshiro snapped. "So how do you guys do it?!"

"Well, I've got it easy," Sendai admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of her read. "Fubuki spends most of her time doing administrative stuff, Hatsuyuki is too lazy to cause trouble, Shirayuki follows everyone else's lead, and Murakumo's pretty calm when she's not getting riled up by someone. Like that Filipino captain."

"You just gotta be nice but firm with my Akatsuki and her sisters," Tenryuu stated. "And not be afraid to actually bring out the stick once in a while."

"I just threaten to sic Harder on 'em."

Kinu blinked, then glanced back and forth at the incredulous stares the other light cruisers were sending her way. "What?!"

"Wow," Tenryuu snarked.

"Look, I know she sank Inazuma in the war, but-"

" _Wow."_

"Oh, shut up!" Kinu snapped. "You've interacted with Kagerou and her division-mates, you know what they're like!"

 _"Wow!"_


	218. Rule 693

**Rule 693. We already went over pranks being a bad idea. To whoever decided to slowly cut down on the caffeine content of the American's coffee, until it was pure Decaff, Followed shortly by replacing it with espresso, you are in trouble.**

All the ships of Task Force 38 breathed a sigh of relief as the skyscrapers of San Diego began to come into sight over the horizon. After two months in Japan, after two months of insanity and poor logistics, they were ready to go back to the comfort and familiarity of San Diego.

Not to mention it was impossible to get a decent fish taco in Japan.

Unfortunately, they were barely a few miles from the mouth of San Diego Bay when they began to get an inkling that something was seriously wrong in San Diego.

 **"I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYYYYYYYY~!"** the Abyssal Martyr Empress, ex-Arizona, sang as she soared past them at a speed that would've put Maury to shame. **"I BELIEVE I CAN TOUCH THE SKYYYYYYY~!"**

The thirty shipgirls of the task force all, to a ship, stared off at their much crazier than usual compatriot as she disappeared over the horizon. The silence held for a moment, until-

"What the actual fuck was that?!" Denver cried out, pulling at her hair in bewilderment.

A loud explosion pulled their attention back landside, as a large plume of smoke and flame rose above the old air station. A half-dozen more explosions followed in rapid succession, and capped off by one, massive detonation.

"Those are battleship-caliber HC shells," Washington numbly observed.

"Okay, forget fuel reserves. Everyone, flank speed into the bay!" Enterprise ordered.

"What about Ari?" Yorktown protested.

"The Naval Base is a higher priority!" Enterprise retorted as the task force surged forward. "Ari's gonna have to handle herself for a little while."

~o~

As Task Force 38 rounded the tip of Coronado, the extent of the carnage became gruesomely clear. Face-down submarines littered the bay like so many dead fish. The insensate forms of carriers, cruisers, and destroyers littered the ground around them. Every single battleship in the Pacific not named Washington or Massachusetts lay in scorched heaps on Coronado Naval Air Station. And they could hear the screams as the few conscious destroyers wreaked havoc in downtown San Diego.

"Jesus Christ..." Enterprise breathed. "Okay, Denver, San Diego, Helena, take the destroyers and go clear out downtown."

"Yes Ma'am!" the three light cruisers barked, before moving to herd up the cats, er, I mean destroyers.

"Portland, San Francisco, New Orleans, I need floatplanes scouting ahead and over downtown. Portland, you'll be relaying the data to the light cruisers."

"Aye!" the heavy cruisers answered, immediately lifting up their catapults to loft their dozen seaplanes into the air.

"Hornet, Yorktown, Essex, we need to have strikes ready to go. We don't know what awaits us."

The carriers nodded grimly, pulling out their rifles and nocking Corsairs, Avengers, Hellcats, Dauntlesses, and Helldivers.

"Washington, Massachusetts-"

Before any orders could be given, a cruiser and three destroyers dove out from behind a docked amphibious assault ship and immediately charged them. Though the destroyers were unfamiliar, Wichita's rigging was quite distinctive. More importantly, they all had a crazed, manic look in their eyes. They quickly got a face full of 5" and 16" for their troubles.

"Uh, yeah, keep doing that."

Slowly, gingerly, the heavy ships of Task Force 38 made their way to the naval base. The carnage was thickest here, and more than once the battleships had to muscle piles of unconscious shipgirls out of the way. Oddly, most of them lacked battle wounds, implying they had just passed out where they stood.

"What happened here?" Yorktown muttered.

"Maybe a ghost got them?" Hornet joked.

"Please don't joke about that," Essex scolded. "You of all people."

"Movement!" San Francisco barked, leveling her 8" guns at a nearby corner. "Come out with your hands up or I shoot!"

Slowly, shakily, a shipgirl stepped out from behind the corner. None of the American ships recognized her, though she was clearly foreign.

"Please do not shootings Garibaldi!" she said in broken English, trembling.

San Francisco lowered her 8" guns, but did not let up in her glare. "What happened here? Answer me truthfully, or the guns come back out."

"No need," Admiral Holloway announced as he stepped out from behind Garibaldi. His uniform shirt was shredded, displaying some impressive muscles for a man in his fifties. "Garibaldi here just got it in her head to wean our girls off of regular navy coffee and onto, and I quote, 'Glorious Italia espresso!'"

The conscious shipgirls collectively groaned. Caffeine-starved shipgirls plus sudden jolts of espresso? Yeah, that would do it.

"Anyway, I know some of the destroyers got into downtown, so-"

"Helena, Denver, and San Diego are cleaning up with our destroyers," Enterprise answered the unspoken question. "In the meantime, let's try and get this place cleaned up a bit, shall we?"


	219. Rule 696

**696: Please stop substituting in Edsall (DD-219) when there are no surface target drones to shoot at. Learning to miss is not the point of gunnery practice.**

"We're out of target drones."

Tennessee blinked, then rubbed her ears. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

"I said," Mississippi repeated, slightly more loudly. "That we're out of target drones."

"How are we out of target drones!?" Tennessee shrieked.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because Arizona keeps tearing them apart with her bare hands?!" Mississippi sniped back.

"And what about California, huh? Why does she keep forgetting to load practice rounds instead of HC?" Tennessee volleyed.

"Or maybe we can just agree that it's Coral Sea's fault for eating the damn things and call it a day," Colorado drawled.

Both battleships opened their mouths to respond, then closed them.

"Point," Mississippi conceded.

"Yeah, blaming Coral Sea is never a bad idea," Tennessee agreed. "So! What do we do for targets, then?"

"I dunno," Colorado shrugged. "You guys're the ones who plan these things."

All three battleships hummed thoughtfully, before Mississippi spoke up.

"I have an idea."

~o~

It was a bright sunny California day, the summer sun having finally burned off the morning fog. That made the thunder rolling across the ocean distinctly odd. At least, to tourists. Residents of San Diego shrugged and went about their days, having become used to this.

After all, nine battleships doing gunnery practice make a lot of noise.

"Ha! Missed me! Oh, so close! No, wait, that was a lie. That's close! And that wasn't! And that was a mile away!"

"Fucking die already!" Arizona shrieked, black shifting into her eyes.

"Arizona, calm down," Pennsylvania barked. "Though I agree, this is pissing me off."

Idaho and New Mexico, on hearing that, slowly edged a little further away from the two older Standards. Pissing off Pennsylvania was hard, and came with equally disastrous consequences.

"Well, it was Mississippi's idea," Tennessee pointed out.

"And I'll kill her second, but first this _brat_ dies!"

Pennsylvania's salvo streaked towards their target - and the shells promptly passed around the destroyer Edsall.

"Nyahahahahaha!" she cackled. "Keep shooting, it won't work!"

"You two could do something, y'know!" Pennsylvania screeched at Colorado and Maryland.

"I-It doesn't seem right to shoot at a fellow shipgirl," Maryland replied.

Colorado opened her mouth to reply-

"Colorado's the smart one!" Edsall interrupted. "She knows her shitty aiming skills won't do anything!"

Eyes widened along the battleline, especially as Colorado developed an eye twitch.

"Oh really?" she said far too calmly. Behind her, another battleship girl steamed up, prompting some of the battleships to whip out their phone cameras.

"Sorry, sorry, I got accosted by Wisconsin!" West Virginia announced, before giving a confused glance at the scene before her. "What's going on?"

"Weevee..." Colorado growled, jabbing a finger at Edsall. "Shoot her to death."

West Virginia glanced at the thoroughly nervous destroyer and grinned. "Will do, sis."

"W-What can you do?" Edsall nervously demanded. "You're just another shitty Colorado and- SHIT!"

For once, Edsall had to dodge - actually dodge - the incoming salvo.

"Newsflash, bitch," West Virginia smirked. "I was gunnery champ until Pearl Harbor. And that's _before_ I got radar." The smirk turned downright vicious as she leveled her 16" guns at the outright panicking Edsall. "Checkmate."

*BOOM!*

"ARGH!"

"Oh, come on!" West Virginia demanded as Edsall emerged from the smoke scorched but intact. "You are impossible! Literally impossible!"


	220. Rule 698

**Rule 698. Yes, the Canadians have rapid deployment Tim Hortons coffee shops. Yes, they show up wherever there's RCN shipgirls. No, don't tease them over it.**

"Day 3 in the desert sea. The heat has somehow become even more unbearable. I haven't seen a cloud or slept a wink this entire time. If I don't get some coffee soon, I might-"

"Alright, alright!" Huron barked. "We'll share some of the coffee! Just shut up already!"

At once, Pasadena lost any traces of the woebegone face she had been wearing. "Great! I'll have a large."

Huron sighed, and steamed over to one of the merchantmen, which had had a Tim Hortons coffee shop hastily erected on her deck. It was one of many such prefabricated structures the Canadians brought with them wherever they went, even using specially constructed barges if there were no suitable decks available. Naturally, this made them the object of either much teasing or begging for coffee, depending on the navy they were working with.

"Ah," Pasadena sighed as Huron came back with her coffee. "Sweet ambrosia..."

"Seriously, you people have a problem," Nootka grumbled.

"Can't talk, drinking coffee!"

The convoy proceeded on in silence from then on as Pasadena tore into the cup. Too quiet, really. The two Canadian destroyers kept glancing at their nominal squadron leader, the heavy cruiser Australia. Everyone knew about Australia; she had a reputation to rival Pensacola's. And yet, she hadn't done anything odd this whole time. It was unnerving.

So when Australia finally perked up and put her hand up to her ear, both destroyers let out massive sighs of relief.

"Alright, everyone, that was Intrepid with the covering force," she announced. "They've been engaged by Abyssals, and they got leakers. Mostly destroyers, so I'll be counting on you to handle that. As for the Ta-class battleship..."

The relief turned to cold dread as Australia let out a demented grin.

"I'm gonna wrestle it."

The dread intensified.

"Here they come!" Pasadena announced, tossing aside her coffee cup and training her guns on the oncoming horde.

Nootka and Huron promptly shoved that thought aside. Survive the Abyssals now, worry about Australia's last scraps of sanity later. Soon, they were in melee with the Abyssals, and had no time to think.

At least, until they heard Australia cry out, combined with the sound of splintering wood.

"I'm okay!" Australia announced from where she'd been thrown into the Tim Hortons, turning it into so much kindling. "Alright, round two, you-"

Australia froze as Nootka and Huron turned towards the Ta-class battleship, their hair rising in waves as a black aura sprang up around them.

The sound that came from their mouths should not have been producible by a human throat.

"So, uh," Pasadena said as they tore the Abyssal to shreds. "Do we separate them, or...?"

"Oh, hell no," Australia immediately denied. "Angry Canadians are way more dangerous than anything Australia has to offer!"


	221. Rule 704

**Rule 704: Indianapolis is to stop fishing for sharks, certain parties are getting uppity.**

"Shark's fin soup?" Livermore read off of the menu board. "Huh. I've never had that. You ever had that?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be for special occasions," Eberle answered. "So what's the occasion?"

"The occasion," came a voice from behind them. "Is that I caught five hundred fucking sharks this week!"

Both destroyers glanced behind them and shivered at the sight of Indianapolis, her eyes a deep black.

"Sharks are the enemy," the heavy cruiser growled. "So it's only fitting they should help nourish us!"

"Are we sure she isn't an Abyssal?" Eberle hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

"Let's just get the damn soup and eat so she doesn't get mad at us!" Livermore shot back.

~o~

NE-74810 charged at the heavy cruiser identified as USS Indianapolis. Her opponent had been weakened fighting off a pack of light cruisers, leaving her weak and easy to finish off! Look at how she slumped to her knees, her hand in the water! This would be a ca-

*SMACK!*

The Abyssal staggered back, her battered brain trying to connect the dots.

 _[What the hell hit me?]_ she wondered.

Pulling her head down, she stared at Indianapolis - or rather, the large tiger shark she was wielding like some kind of flail.

[Did that bitch just hit me with a fucking _shark?!_ ] the Abyssal demanded.

"Hell yes I did!" Indianapolis roared back. "And I'll keep hitting you until you leave me in peace! I've got more important things to do than fight you!"

NE-74810 audibly gulped. This shipgirl was _crazy_. No, no, crazy wasn't the right word. _Bugfuck nuts_ might be a better one. And for whatever reason, the crazier the shipgirl, the stronger she was. She'd heard from the battleship girls about that crazy Japanese battleship who kept kicking their asses. So, the Abyssal heavy cruiser did the only thing she could.

She turned tail and began steaming in the other direction as fast as her engines could push her.

~o~

"What've we got today, Wright?" Admiral Holloway said as he stepped into his office, easing out of his coat and hanging it up on the rack. "And dead tree format only. I can check email myself."

"Mostly junk, a few requests for donations from the museum ships, and, uh, a letter from Greenpeace," Wright answered, holding out the aforementioned letter.

"For fuck's sake, if they get on my case about oil again..." he muttered as he tore open the envelope and began reading. He lasted two minutes before facepalming.

"Sir?" Wright wondered.

"Tell Indianapolis," came the reply through gritted teeth. "That she is officially _banned_ from her shark-fishing habit until she attends a few seminars on _sustainable fucking fishing. BECAUSE FIVE HUNDRED A WEEK IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!"_


	222. Rule 710

**Rule 710. I don't know who left out the "special" brownies where the destroyers could reach them, but Tenryu would like to have some words with you.**

Kirishima stared at the box in front of her, recently shipped to her by her girlfriend Washington. A box that had held some... "special" brownies the battleship had baked up using a certain... herbal substance recently made legal in her home state. It was also a very empty box.

Slowly, she turned her head to where several destroyers had essentially melted into peace-out blobs under the influence of the brownies Kirishima had had to leave out in the open to go on a sortie. She turned her head the other way, where a very, very angry Tenryuu was glaring nuclear firepower at her. You could tell by the fact that she wasn't wearing her eyepatch.

The fast battleship debated what to say. "They should have known better than to eat anything left out"? True, but likely to just piss off Tenryuu further. "At least it wasn't Desdiv 6 this time"? Same problem. "I had no idea what was in them"? Considering the pot leaf festooned on the card Washington had thoughtfully included, and her own reputation for intelligence, unlikely to be believed. There was only one thing to do.

"In my defense," she sighed. "I had to sortie literally five minutes after opening the box."

"Not. Good. Enough," Tenryuu growled, leaning in a bit.

"What do you want from me, Tenryuu?" Kirishima fired back. "I told you why they were out, and quite frankly pot is about as harmless as you can get with drugs. Certainly better than all that vodka Hibiki drinks."

Tenryuu opened her mouth, and then seemed to deflate. "I want to stop her, but goddammit this place is a madhouse at the best of times."

Kirishima nodded sagely. "Yes. Yes it is. And while alcohol is not therapy, it does help."

The light cruiser snorted at the mentioning of one "Da Rulez", as some of the Americans had called them. "Alright, so, we just let them sleep it off?" Tenryuu confirmed.

"Yes. Unless one of them has an adverse reaction to-"

Both shipgirls' eyes widened and they whirled around to the pile of stoned-out destroyers. And one was missing.

"... Where'd Yuudachi go?" Kirishima breathed.

~o~

NE-122394 blinked at the destroyer shipgirl swaying through the waves, her rigging nonexistent. Behind her, two of her sisters had much the same reaction.

[What in the world is a shipgirl doing out here without her rigging?] NE-122393 wondered.

[And is she stoned?] NE-122395 added. [Because she looks stoned.]

[Who cares!] 394 declared. [We have one of those blasted shipgirls in a vulnerable position! I say we kill her!] And with that, she leveled her guns at Yuudachi and fired.

The shells missed as the destroyer swayed out of the way. And then she looked 394 dead in the eye, and the Abyssal knew she'd done fucked up.

"Poi?"

The other two heavy cruisers weren't entirely sure what happened next, but it involved a lot of blood, NE-122394 being beaten to death with her own skull, and the two of them beating a hasty retreat and swearing off fighting shipgirls ever again.

~o~

"Jesus Christ," Tenryuu muttered as she steamed around the corpse of yet another I-class destroyer.

"I know," Kirishima agreed, examining one of the corpses. "I don't know whether to tell Wash to not send any more pot products or send as much as she can." She picked up the corpse, only for it to fall to pieces. "I'm pretty sure she did most of this with her bare hands."

"Well, at least she's doing this to Abyssals..."

The two shipgirls continued to steam their way through the corpse field, then exited it. And only a few minutes later, Kirishima spotted their wayward charge on the horizon.

"She appears to be hunched over something," the battleship reported.

"I'll go get her," Tenryuu decided, accelerating forward. Kirishima watched as the light cruiser made her way to the destroyer, and then was promptly bowled over in a very familiar manner.

"... Did she turn into a dog?"


	223. Rule 713

**Rule 713. Laxative is not to be liquefied and injected into Admiral Goto's Blueberry Muffin via small syringe.**

"TEI~TO~KU~!"

Kongo burst through Admiral Goto's door - and promptly ran into his fist, pinwheeling in the air before crashing to the floor with a loud thud. Not two seconds later she popped back up, grinning like a maniac.

"You're getting good, Admiral!" she chirped, before suddenly lunging for him. "But did you think of-!"

Goto's hand latched onto her face like a limpet before slamming her into the wall.

"Okay, you did," came the muffled reply.

"Honestly," Goto sighed as he let Kongo go. "It's like dating Isshin Kurosaki sometimes."

"You know how the Abyssals like decapitation strikes, Admiral," Kongo admonished, dusting off her uniform. "You have to be prepared! Constant-!"

"Finish that, and I'll go straight to sleep tonight," Goto deadpanned.

That shut her up. For a few moments, the only sound was the scritch-scratch of Goto's pen and the click-clack of the keys of his computer. Looking over his shoulder quickly proved boring for the British-born battleship, and she began looking over his office. And something immediately caught her eye.

"You didn't eat your muffin?" Kongo wondered.

"I got a feeling," Goto replied. "The last time I had that particular feeling, it turned out someone replaced the sugar with salt."

Yuck.

"Mind if I eat it?"

"Your funeral."

As it turned out, the muffin tasted just fine. That wasn't the problem. The problem started about fifteen minutes later.

"Gnnnnnnnn..."

Goto winced as Kongo's agonized groans drifted out of the bathroom. Laxatives. Someone had put laxatives in his blueberry muffin. That someone was going to pay.

"OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE FIRE!"

The only question was whether he or Kongo would deliver it.

"TELL MY SISTERS I LOVE THEM!"

And the sounds... oh, the sounds. In fact, it was probably a good idea to start figuring out who had done this. Just so he wouldn't have to continue listening to his girlfriend's intestinal agony.

~o~

"Who did this?" Kongo groaned.

The poor battleship looked like shit. A film of dried sweat coated her face, which was still pale from her exertions. Bags sat under eyes red from the strain. And her usual miko outfit had been exchanged for sweatpants and a t-shirt, her brown hair tied up in a ponytail rather than her usual buns. She actually pulled it off pretty well, though Goto was savvy enough to wait until after this whole mess was resolved to mention that.

"Well," he said. "I'm pretty sure it was either Nagato, Chitose, or Suzuya. They were the ones who had the opportunity to do this. Why, I don't know."

"Right," Kongo replied, her gaze steeling into the deadly battleship feared on all the seas. "Gather them together. We need to have a _talk._ "


	224. Rule 716

**AN: What the fuck, brain.**

 **Rule 716. Shipgirls do not "consume the flesh of their fallen enemies to gain their strength." It is wrong to tell ANYONE that is how refits are done.**

"Remind me again why we're following Kiso?"

Shikinami pulled back from where she was watching the light cruiser around the tree they were hiding behind, and gave Ayanami a flat look. "To find the source of her power, of course!"

"This again..." the older destroyer sighed, her hand coming up to meet her face. "Look, Kiso's just another shipgirl, okay? There are no blood rituals, no demonic pacts, and no consuming the flesh of fallen Abyssals."

"She eats heavy cruisers for breakfast!" Shikinami shot back. "Well, figuratively, but name another light cruiser who can do that!"

"Tenryuu, Tatsuta, Kitakami, Jintsuu..."

"Besides those!" Shikinami shouted, before immediately turning back to her surveillance at a flash of movement. "Oh, wait, she's moving!"

Ayanami rolled her eyes, but nonetheless followed her sister. Someone had to keep her out of trouble. Darting from cover to cover, they followed Kiso until she ducked into one of the warehouses that dotted the base.

"Ah, this must be where she does her dark rituals!" Shikinami declared. With that, she crept up to the door and eased it open, Ayanami following.

Immediately, the two destroyers were assaulted by a familiar noise: metal shrieking as it was torn apart. Dark shapes were scattered across the floor of the warehouse, and in front of them sat Kiso, hunched over something.

"Hey, Ayanami, hit her with your spotlight," Shikinami whispered to her sister.

"What?! No!"

"Just do it."

Ayanami glared daggers at the other destroyer."No, no, and hell no."

"I'll pay you in ice cream," Shikinami offered.

"... Butter pecan?"

"Sure."

Ayanami sighed, and began readying her spotlight. "For the record, this is a terrible idea."

"Noted. Now turn on that damn spotlight!"

Grumbling, Ayanami turned on her spotlight - and almost immediately had to suppress the urge to scream.

Scattered all around them were the corpses of Abyssals, from PT imps to the still-leering face of a Re-class battleship. Worse, the crunching paused, and Kiso turned her head, something metallic in her mouth and a predatory gleam in her eyes.

"Who's there?" she growled, before standing up and practically looming over them. This action revealed what had been in her mouth: the battered tail of the Re-class battleship, the two arms held in her other hands. "You saw me..."

"S-She's eating the Abyssals..." Shikinami squeaked.

"That's... how does that do anything!" Ayanami demanded. "It's all metal and-!"

"Yeah, funny thing about that," Kiso said, biting through the tail in her mouth with one stroke. "Everything looks edible when you're almost out of fuel and thousands of miles away from Japan. And then... after I ate it, I found that eating that Abyssal had made me _stronger_."

 _'Fighting spirit!'_ Ayanami realized. _'It's not about fuel or nutrition, it's a ritual to replenish her fighting spirit!'_

"Now," Kiso said, her hand drifting to her sword. "You understand that I can't let anyone know about this, right?"

Ayanami silently cursed her lack of rigging. One torpedo, her kingdom for one torpedo!

"Ah, so this is the source of your power."

The crunching sound returned, and all eyes in the warehouse fell on Tenryuu, who was munching on one of the Abyssal shards.

"Not very nutritious," she continued. "Or tasty." She promptly spat out the small piece she'd eaten. "What? I knew you had to replenish your fighting spirit somehow. Me, I just need to think about fighting you, and..." An expression of perfect bliss came over her face.

Kiso stared for a moment, before drawing her sword. "Well. I guess now's as good a time as any to prove my superiority once and for all."

Tenryuu grinned back, drawing her own sword. "Bring it, bitch."

Ayanami glanced between the two sword-wielding maniacs, and decided to invoke the better part of valor.

"Time to go," she said, grabbing Shikinami by the arm and slipping out the door.

And none too soon, as a shockwave neatly sliced through the warehouse just above head height of the two destroyers.


	225. Rule 722

**Rule 722. The battleships are no longer allowed to play music in their barracks.**

"Alright, you jackasses," Iowa announced to the assembled battleships of San Diego. "I got permission from Admiral Holloway to actual play some fucking music around here. Sadly, I'm being deployed for the next week, so it's up to you fuckers to decide what we play. Don't fuck this up."

Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Missouri all promptly saluted. "Yes, ma'am!" they barked.

"Fuckin' A. Well, I'll see you bitches in a week."

The minute Iowa walked out the door, all three battleships let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank God," Tennessee sighed. "And here I thought we'd have to let her pick the music."

"Yes, that would have been a disaster," Missouri agreed. "I, for one, would like to not have another batch of protestors outside our gates."

"And we get to pick our own music!" Pennsylvania happily stated. "I say some disco classics!"

Missouri and Tennessee both stared at Pennsylvania as if she'd just announced she liked the Michael Bay Transformers movies for anything other than the cool explosions.

"Are you crazy?!" Tennessee demanded. "Disco?! That's... you can't... Missouri, back me up here!"

"I agree with Tennessee," Missouri said as she adjusted her glasses. "It's brainless, vapid, and sadly out of date."

"Philistines! What would you pick, anyway?"

"Country, but old country. Not the shit they play today."

"Some Jazz classics would do nicely."

The two battleships blinked, and then glanced at each other with much the same expressions as the ones they had directed at Pennsylvania.

"Jazz. Seriously?" Tennessee deadpanned. "We're not a nightclub here."

"Nor is it a dingy bar," Missouri sniffed. "At least my choice has a bit of _class_ to it."

"Why you-!"

"Girls, girls," Pennsylvania intervened. "Why don't we ask the other battleships for their opinions? Whoever gets the most votes wins."

The other two battleships considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Deal."

Of course, underneath the congenial agreement were plans. Plans for their diverse collection of portable speakers. They'd get their converts.

~o~

"Eh, I'm more of a Nirvana/Pearl Jam kind of gal," Washington answered. "And luckily, I've converted North Carolina to the Seattle sound, though in a different direction."

"Grunge is fine, but some of those rap artists are really fun to listen to," North Carolina added. " _I like big butts and I cannot lie..._ "

~o~

"I don't see how you can call your sugar-pop and that disgusting gangster shit actual music," New Jersey practically _snarled_ at Wisconsin and California.

"Those songs are classics! Core parts of music history!" Wisconsin fired back.

"Sorry," California apologized to the three battleships meeting them. "But I'm not into that sort of stuff, and those two are going to be at it for a while. You should probably move on."

~o~

"Bah, Nashville country is all crap," West Virginia said dismissively. "Plus, Maryland's a gospel girl and Colorado doesn't listen to music unless she's getting stoned. Sorry, but if this goes through I'm going to consider it a declaration of war."

~o~

Arizona and Idaho sat at one of the coffee shops on base, nursing the largest drinks they could get. As the only two battleships without any stake in the ongoing Sound Wars (New Mexico and Mississippi had teamed up to blare Latin pop, of all things), they had been assaulted by music of all genres practically day and night.

The door opened, and the two sleepy battleships were greeted by the sight of an even dozen equally sleepy heavy cruisers approaching them.

"You're... not doing the whole Sound Wars thing?" San Francisco wondered, a hopeful note creeping into her voice.

"Yeah..." Idaho drew out. "Why?"

Neither were expecting Portland to throw herself at the feet, tears in her eyes. "Please, make it stop!" she pleaded. "I haven't slept in three days from all the noise!"

Both Arizona and Idaho winced, the former finally managing to respond. "We tried. Didn't end well. Waiting for Iowa."

"Well, when does she get back?"

"Right fucking now."

All eyes turned around to see Iowa in the doorway looking absolutely thunderous.

"I fucking knew this would happen. Fucking knew it! Now I gotta be the fucking responsible one and knock some sense into those thick skulls!" She stomped by the gathered shipgirls, leaving concrete divots in the floor. "Just for that, we're gonna be doing 90s boy bands 24/7!" Two pairs of earplugs landed in front of the battleships. "And put those in so you don't go mad."

Before Iowa could leave, though, the cruisers shook off their shock. "Hey!" San Francisco barked. "What about us, huh?"

Iowa glanced back before waving dismissively. "Ah, don't worry. I won't need to play it as loud as they do." And with that, she left.


	226. Rule 718

**Rule 718. Type three rounds are known to explode in the barrel during proper use.** ** _Why_** **would you think cutting them open to light the powders on fire would be a good idea?**

"That's odd..."

Captain Yonehara paled at the words of the fresh-from-the-academy ensign. "That's odd" was an object of horror for most logistics officers, because it meant a problem, and not even one of the usual ones. And that meant more work, and more stress, and-

He took a deep breath, and squeezed the stress ball Ashigara had given him. Calm. He was calm. Maybe it wasn't bad.

"What is it, ensign?" he asked.

"Oh, we're missing about a dozen or so 14" type 3 rounds," he answered. "Plus a few 18". Should I...?"

Yonehara breathed an internal sigh of relief. They had too many of those rounds as it was; some of the battleships had probably grabbed a few more than necessary and not returned them. Frankly, those type 3s were pretty harmless to the battleships that used them; even if they did go off, it shouldn't cause a loss of fighting efficiency.

"Don't worry about it," he waved dismissively. "Shell numbers fluctuate, and that's well within the normal margins. Just adjust the numbers and move on."

"Yes, sir."

~o~

"Hey, has anyone seen Shirayuki?"

Hatsuyuki and Fubuki both shrugged at Murakumo's question.

"Said she was going to the armory to stock up on shells," Fubuki answered absently as she continued looking over some spreadsheet printouts. "I swear, that girl hoards those things. Why?"

"I wanted to tell her I got the fireworks after all," Murakumo replied, holding up a plastic bag. "Don't tell him I said it, but apparently that stupid Captain Darren is good for something besides being an irredeemable pervert after all ."

"Fireworks, huh?" Fubuki asked as she sat up, her attention now firmly on her younger sister. "Anything dangerous?"

"Nothing worse than firecrackers."

"Wait..." Hatsuyuki interjected. "If she was looking for fireworks, why did she grab a hacksaw?"

All three destroyers were still for second before their eyes widened and they bolted for the door.

~o~

Shirayuki sawed steadily away at the 14" type 3, an uncharacteristic grin on her face.

"Just a little longer," she muttered to herself. "Just a little longer, and I'll have all the powder I need."

She was just getting into the shell cavity when the inevitable happened: the metal of the saw caught the metal of the shell _just_ right to set off a spark. And as any idiot would tell you, spark + exposed explosives = bad times.

CHOW!

~o~

The explosion did a very good job of attracting the attention of Fubuki, Hatsuyuki, and Murakumo, who immediately sprinted for the spot. After a few minutes, they rounded a corner that led to a courtyard that was currently sporting a scorch mark on the concrete ground, shrapnel holes peppering the walls, more battleship shells in a pile on the ground, and Shirayuki embedded in one of the walls with shrapnel wounds of her own.

As they watched, stunned and somewhat relieved she hadn't tried it one of the 18" shells they saw in the pile, the destroyer's body peeled off the wall, depositing her face-first onto the ground.

"Oi..." Fubuki groaned, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Murakumo, get Shirayuki to the docks. Hatsuyuki, get in touch with someone who can safely dispose of the shells. I'll handle everything else."

As her sisters scrambled to do just that, she glanced down at the insensate Shirayuki.

"It's always the quiet ones," she muttered.


	227. Rule 726

**Rule 726. Yes, there is a** ** _Nimitz_** **docked in our port, it's here for replenishment. No, you may not ask for jet rides.**

"Holy shit..." Zuikaku breathed.

"Yes, impressive, isn't it?" Hosho said as she and the Shokaku sisters watched the massive supercarrier nose into the port. "The last of the Nimitz class, USS Ronald Reagan. This is what the aviators promised when they first designed me."

She turned to the two fleet carriers to invite them to where the supercarrier was docking, only to find them gone. Her eyes widened, and she quickly glanced over to the water, where the two carriers were steaming up to the behemoth.

"Oh dear."

~o~

Captain Leander let the tension drain from her shoulders as her ship nosed into Yokosuka, the small group of cruiser and destroyer shipgirls berthed in the battlegroup's two modified LCS steaming in a protective ring around their steel counterparts. Pacific deployments in conventional ships were always harrowing, and not every battlegroup could get the modified Americas capable of supporting a whole task force. Still, they were safe. Almost out of missiles, and down a few Superbugs, but safe.

Now that she didn't have to keep her eyes peeled for any reports of Abyssals, she let her eyes just roam as her crew did their jobs. As a result, she was able to catch sight of a commotion on the flight deck, one of the bright-shirted flight deck crew arguing with what appeared to be a Japanese shipgirl. What was that about?

~o~

"Aw, c'mon, one ride?" Zuikaku whined. "It doesn't even need to be a single-seater, I'll gladly fly in the back seat of one of the Superbugs!"

"For the last time, lady, no!" the increasingly frustrated crewmember replied. "Now piss off, I've got work to do!"

Zuikaku pouted for a few seconds, before leaning over and tugging at her top, a sultry smile on her face. "Alright then. Perhaps we could... negotiate down to a helicopter ride?"

The crewmember sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, lady, even if you had the assets for that sort of thing, the answer would still be no." And with that, he turned around, leaving behind a stunned and steamed Zuikaku.

"You get back here, you-!"

~o~

Eh, it looked to be under control. More worrying was the other shipgirl who seemed to have strapped herself to one of the bow steam catapults. Luckily, more of the deck crew were yelling at her, and the pri-fly was unlikely to actually launch the damn thing. Still, both incidents pointed to a shocking lack of discipline among Japanese shipgirls.

"Hey, Cap! Watcha doin'?"

Captain Leander sighed internally as Montpelier dragged Amsterdam away by her ear. Correction: just another example in an entire library of them of terrible discipline issues among shipgirls. It might be a Sisyphean task, and she did not envy her comrades in the shipgirl branch, but she'd need to bring this to Admiral Goto's attention.


	228. Rule 730

**Rule 730: Destroyers are warships, not plushies.**

"Yo! I'm the third of the Matsu-class destroyers, Take! Point me at those submarines!"

The newly summoned destroyer's cheeky grin fell into one of confusion. The clapping and greetings from the officers around her was nice, but the actions of the big battleship - Nagato, she was pretty sure - supervising the summoning were... odd. She was quivering in place, wide eyes locked on her. As much as the destroyer was in love with her own badassness, she could admit that scaring a battleship was a bit much. Oh well, worry about that later.

"Glad to have you, Take," a man in an admiral's dress uniform said as he stepped up, holding out his hand. "I'm Admiral Goto, the commander of this naval base. How much do you know about what's going on?"

Take grinned again. "Good to meet you, Admiral," she stated, grabbing the officer's hand and pumping it. "Well, I know about those... things. The Dark Ones." She shuddered. "With how few of us are left unsummoned, they're stepping up efforts to try and turn us. Creepy fuckers, the lot of them."

Admiral Goto frowned at that. "We may need to step up summoning..." He shook his head, warm smile back in place. "In any case, Nagato will show you around the base, see you to your quarters, and give you your training schedule. We'll need to get you up to speed on modern tactics and society, among other things, before we can deploy you."

"Aye aye, Admiral!" Take saluted before turning to Nagato. "Let's do this! ... Why are you staring at me like that?"

That seemed to break Nagato out whatever spell she'd been under, and she lunged forward, hearts in her eyes. "Oh, you're so cute!"

Take, stunned, was unable to react before Nagato swept her up into a hug. "Oh, we're going to have such good times together, you and me!"

"Put me down, jackass!" Take snapped, only for Nagato to squeeze tighter. "Meep!"

Silence fell over the room as Take tried to clap her hands over her mouth and Nagato stared. "Did... you just squeak?"

"No!"

"You did!" Nagato's grin spread until it was practically touching her ears. "You squeaked! Oh my god that's so adorable!"

Once again, the battleship's arms contracted, drawing another squeak out of the furiously blushing destroyer.

"Uh, sir?" one of Goto's officers whispered to him as the display continued. "Maybe we should pull Nagato off of greeting duty..."

"Well, if you can find me another shipgirl with the right combination of temperament, ability, and availability, let me know."

Another squeak sounded from Take, and finally she couldn't take it anymore. Gritting her teeth, she waited for Nagato to loosen her grip, then reached down, grabbed a torpedo out from the launcher on her back, and slammed it down on Nagato's head.

"I am not some kind of goddamn squeaky toy!" she shouted at Nagato, who was squatted down, clutching her head. "Now get me through this tour so I can never speak to you again!"

"Besides," Goto grinned. "Most of the girls she latches onto can handle themselves."


	229. Rule 736

**Rule 736. Please remember that our destroyers are like daughters, they're precious and should be well-treated.**

"WHERE THE HELL ARE MY DESTROYERS?!"

Several heavy cruisers flinched back from the incensed roar Admiral Holloway and Enterprise had let out simultaneously.

"W-We don't know!" St. Paul stammered fearfully. "We've looked everywhere!"

"And we do mean everywhere," Houston drawled. "Wherever they are, it's not on base."

"Then _find them_ before my patience runs out," Holloway ground out through gritted teeth. "MOVE!"

As the heavy cruisers scrambled to comply, the admiral sighed and slumped into his chair, running a hand through his hair. "I hope they find them soon. We need those destroyers. Even if DEs could handle the work, we don't have enough of those, either."

~o~

On top of another building overlooking the Admiralty office, John C. Butler put down the binoculars she'd been using to spy on the meeting. "Plan A is back in effect," she reported to her partner. "Plan B will not be going forward."

"Aww..." Samuel B. Roberts whined as she put down her rocket launcher. "I never get to do Plan B."

~o~

"Sammy B. might take exception to that, sir," Enterprise pointed out. "But you're right. Whoever took those destroyers had better bring them back, unharmed, or I might have to get creative." The carrier's fists clenched at her sides, the sound of her knuckles popping knifing through the air like gunshots.

"Isn't that usually reserved for Yamato?" Holloway pointed out, grinning and raising his hands at the heated glare she shot his way. "Kidding."

The two lapsed into an awkward silence for a few minutes before Nicholas and U-505 swung the door open, both of the, looking about ready to murder someone.

"Please tell me the rest of the destroyers are back, too," Admiral Holloway pleaded.

"They're back," Nicholas growled.

"Where were you all, anyway?" Enterprise wondered.

"Some of the sailors brought us to an amusement park up in Los Angeles," U-505 answered with uncharacteristic heat.

Enterprise and Holloway glanced at each other. This was... unusual. U-505 almost never got like this, and the only thing connecting the two together was-

"What happened to William D. Porter?" he demanded, a sinking weight in the pit of his stomach.

Both destroyer and submarine grimaced. "Trust me, you don't want to know," Nicholas sighed. "All you need to know is that it involves O'Bannon, and that Willie hasn't stopped crying since."

"And that state of affairs is _absolutely unnacceptable!"_ U-505 shouted, slamming her palms. "I have half a mind to call my sisters and-"

"Look, we've been over this," Nicholas groaned the groan of someone who's had to deal with the exact argument many, many times. "We have enough trouble trying to keep the rest of the Fletchers from getting the torches and pitchforks. Throwing in a few hundred marauding U-Boats is the absolute _last_ thing we need right now."

"Well, we need to do something!"

Admiral Holloway groaned as the two bickered, Enterprise giving him a comforting pat on the back. Some days, it just didn't pay to get out of bed.


	230. Rule 739

**739\. Yes, Nagato and Bismarck had to put destroyers in their gun turret sockets as their main guns were missing. Yes, for a given value of worked, it worked. No, it will not be repeated.**

Nagato stared at her half-panicked fairies. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she said.

"Desu! Desu desu desu!"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she groaned, slapping her hand to her face. "How did you misplace my main gun turrets?!"

"Desu! Desu desu... desu?" The lead fairy gave an apologetic shrug.

"Well, then, we have a problem," Nagato said to her fairies, heat creeping into her voice. "I'm supposed to be deployed soon, and if I don't have my main battery turrets, I-!"

"Desu!"

She blinked. Whatever reply she'd been expecting, that wasn't it. She quickly ran the weights in her head, and then started shuffling through her mental rolodex of destroyers.

"A good idea, but I'm afraid they're all too heavy," Nagato sighed.

"Desu! Desu de-"

"Wait, who?"

~o~

"So, let me get this straight," Karukaya said. "You want us-" Here she pointed to her sisters Sanae, Fuyo, and Asagao. "To replace your gun turrets for your deployment. Because you lost them. Somehow."

Nagato nodded. "That is correct."

"It's better than hunting submarines," Asagao pointed out. All three of her sisters shuddered; stupid submarines, sinking all of them.

"Alright, we're in," Karukaya said. "D'you want more torpedoes, or more depth charges? Agh, what am I saying, of course you want torpedoes! Give us an hour or so to swap out our equipment and we'll be good to go."

"I'll go grab spare torpedoes for reloads!" Fuyo added.

~o~

"So, d'you know why Bismarck is doing that, or-?"

"I'm afraid I'm as much in the dark as you are."

Gneisenau and Tirpitz watched, somewhat bemused, as Bismarck darted in and out of the shell splashes, the torpedo boats Wolf, Iltis, Jaguar, and Leopard firing their 105mm guns at the destroyers attempting to swarm her.

"Well, I'm not going to complain about what's basically firing practice," Gneisenau decided, firing another salvo from her 15" guns.

"I don't think anyone likes getting shot at," Tirpitz pointed out.

A series of explosions rocked the sea, and their cruiser and destroyer escorts cheered as plumes of water rose above the Ta-class battleships they'd been fighting, torpedoes from Bismarck's extemporized turrets tearing their guts open.

"Though, that still begs the question of where her gun turrets ended up."

~o~

"Akitsu Maru!"

The Army landing ship flinched as over 40,000 tons of battleship Kool-Aid Manned through the wall.

"H-Hi, Mutsu, what's up?" she stammered, sweat dripping from her temples.

"I want my sister's gun turrets back, if you please," the battleship said sweetly, holding out her hand.

The sweating intensified. "Why, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know you took them, Akitsu," Mutsu replied, still in that sickly sweet tone of hers. "And I more than anyone else understand using old gun turrets for coastal defense. But my sister needs them, and if you won't hand them over willingly, well..." Her smile widened by a few molars. "I understand Aoba is a bit starved for good stories at the moment."

There was silence for a brief second, before Akitsu Maru threw herself at Mutsu's feet. "Alright, alright! I hid them under the floorboards! Just... take them and don't tell anyone else, please!"

"Good girl," Mutsu said, patting her head.


	231. Rule 742

**AN: A new bonus chapter from Shaithan!**

 **Rule 742. Woe be anyone who disturbs the ability of the European Shipgirls to watch the FIFA World Championship. They promised that the football riot to follow would make the Nika Riots look like a brawl between toddlers.**

Far out in the Atlantic, the Atlantic Empress sailed, coordinating with her counterparts in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. She was one of those Abyssals everyone was wary of going near. She was a Queen of the High Seas, challenging her was a madman's task.

So it was with considerable surprise that she picked up radar contacts. None of her Abyssals were nearby, so there could be only one explanation: an attack by the shipgirls. She grinned, eager to show those girls who truly ruled the seas.

The next minutes saw her confidence falter. Radar picked up an ever-increasingnumber of contacts. The battleship count alone was at fifty now, and was still growing. This was already a force that might be able to challenge her; discretion seemed to be the better part of valor right now.

Preparing to run, she sent out a ping into the surrounding waters. Her sonar responded with a deafening roar when it picked up well over 1000 contacts.

She looked around, completely surrounded on all sides by shipgirls emerging from the mist one after another. French, Italian, Spanish, Austro-Hungarian, Argentinian, Brazilian, Italian, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Japanese, German and British girls. The submarines surfaced, making the High Seas Empress wince. She was facing a fleet large enough to take on the entire goddamn US Navy and win.

A British shipgirl sailed ahead of the pack, flanked by a German, French, Italian and Spanish girl. It was HMS Dreadnought, the Mother of all Battleships, her mirror in many ways.

Dreadnought grinned darkly. "Fancy meeting you here, Empress," she began.

Before the High Seas Empress could get a word in edgewise, Dreadnought continued. "See, we are in a bit of a bind. After all, we are expected to patrol the Atlantic Ocean so that it is... mostly clear of your little minions. Unfortunately, doing so would keep us from a far more important task."

The High Seas Empress looked at her mirror image. "Speak clearly," she demanded, with far more bravado than she felt.

Dreadnought's grin threatened to split her cheeks open. "Ah, right to the point. You sure you're not related to Kaiser's girls over there?" she said, jabbing a thumb at the gaggle of German dreadnoughts behind her. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, her expression went from mischievous to malevolent. "You might not know it, but the World Cup is soon. And all the girls who are here want to cheer on their home teams," she explained quietly.

The High Seas Empress was still puzzled, but Dreadnought continued.

"You see, should we have to miss a game because an Abyssal showed its ugly mug anywhere near a shipping lane, we will be unhappy." she explained. "There is... considerable precedent to what happens when Europeans are unhappy. You and your sisters, you will then face the Mother Of All Footbal Riots!" She took a step forward, a wide grin spreading across her face. "The last such riot almost toppled an Empire."

The High Seas Empress needed all her willpower not to shake like a leaf. The assembled naval power was more than enough to beat her. Together with her sisters she might have been able to negotiate with this fleet on equal footing, but as it was, she was so outgunned that it wasn't even funny.

Dreadnought continued. "You see, the deal is as such. During the week leading up to the World Cup, the four weeks of it and another week after it, no Abyssal will show their outside the territories designated enemy waters and you won't attack ships even if they cross into your waters," she stated with a cold smile. "Should you or your sisters break this deal, you can rest assured that we will return, this time with the complete naval might of the entire world backing us. We will hunt you, tear your fleets asunder until every last one of you is a broken, dying wreck and finally, when all is said and done, you and your sisters will be executed on live television for the whole world to see." Suddenly, a light cruiser leaned in and whispered something in Dreadnought's ear. "Or executed on a livestream, but same difference, really."

The High Seas Empress couldn't suppress her shudders any longer. "Why?" she whispered.

Dreadnought laughed. "Silly little Empress. The Beautiful Game is sacred," she said, still grinning. "Now, I'm glad we had this little talk. We need to go, our Admirals are likely missing us already."

The High Seas Empress had to endure one last humiliation as the British shipgirls started to leave. The German girl came up to her. "Hier. A calendar and a clock. The date for the beginning of the armistice is marked. Make sure you remember it, ja?" she said and handed over the items, before leaving with the massive fleet, the whole fleet vanishing into the morning fog like a nightmare.

The High Seas Empress shook her head. She desperately wished for these things to have not been real, but the evidence was in her hands. She needed to contact her sisters. And that Admiral some of her younger girls kept around.

For a moment she was grateful that the US Navy wasn't invested in the same sports as the rest of the world. The last thing she needed was the US Navy joining a combined European fleet out for her blood. Oh, and some South Americans and the Japanese, too. "Mad. Everyone's mad," she rasped. "It's just a game."

A tap on her shoulder made her shriek. She whirled around to find HMS Thetis stood behind her.

"It's not just a game. It's more. Far more. Football may as well be our life. I pity that you'll likely never be able to understand it," the submarine said as she hugged the shocked Abyssal. "I dearly hope that you will one day be able to understand it." At that, she broke the hug and made a crash dive, vanishing as if she had never been there.


	232. Rule 743

**Rule 743. It's henceforth forbidden to lure Nagato away with cute things.**

Nagato was simply walking outside of one of the buildings at Yokosuka when she saw it. A picture of a very small kitten yawning. Curious, and her heart thumping just a little bit, she walked forward and picked it up. After she finished fawning over it, she saw another picture, this time of a cartoon baby hippo in a tutu doing a ballerina twirl. That was picked up and fawned over, too, as was the next picture, and the next. Slowly but steadily, Nagato moved along the trail of cute things, the objects progressively escalating in cuteness. It didn't take long before she had graduated from pictures to plushies.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and soon Nagato spotted a box of mewling, adorable, live kittens - sitting under another box, with "KITTENS!" scribbled in crayon on the front and held up at an angle by a stick with a piece of string leading to a nearby bush. Naturally, she either didn't see or didn't care about the extremely obvious trap, and immediately dashed for the kittens, knocking over the stick and dropping the box in the process.

Admiral Goto paused the recording, and gazed out over the two shipgirls assembled in front of him. Nagato had her head in her hands, her luminescent blush perfectly visible between her fingers. Beside her sat Mutsu, who had laid a comforting arm over her sister's shoulder.

"I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on why this is a problem," Goto said. "But just in case, imagine if instead of a cardboard box, this was an explosive mine, wire-triggered torpedo trap, or just some concealed 18" guns."

Both battleships clearly understood, if Nagato's shudder and Mutsu's heated glare (thankfully not at him) were anything to go by.

"Now, I do hope that base security can stop a stunt like this, and just in case I've initiated a review of the security procedures, but this is war. Shit happens. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull you from combat operations until we solve this, Nagato."

The battleship nodded. "Yes, Admiral," came the muffled reply.

"And I'm assuming you have a solution?" Mutsu added. "You wouldn't pull one of your most powerful battleships indefinitely, I know that."

"Well spotted, Mutsu," Goto replied. "It's not the best solution, but it should work, and it's fairly low-risk, all things considered." Goto's gaze locked onto Nagato, and his voice, when he spoke, was deadly serious. "Battleship Nagato, I order you to look at cat pictures - hell, just pictures of cute things in general - until you're completely sick of them."

Nagato dropped her hands, eyes wide, and a wide grin began to stretch across her face. "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack," Goto replied. "Now get to work!"

Nagato barely saluted before running out the door, presumably to get to her computer. Mutsu watched her go, then turned her gaze back to Admiral Goto, one eyebrow raised. "This was Kongo's plan, wasn't it."

"Yes, it was..." Goto replied, a dreamy look spreading over his face. "God, I love that woman..."

Mutsu giggled, before rising herself. "In that case, Admiral, I think I'll go dig up some more material for my sister. Ta-ta!" She passed through the door, then poked her head through a few seconds later. "Oh, and make sure no one else tries this sort of stunt, okay? Otherwise I'll be... displeased."


	233. Rule 747

**AN: Another excellent bonus chapter from Sheo Darren!**

 **Rule 747. We don't even care that you violated several rules for this stunt. But how did you get Shimakaze to pay attention long enough to learn to fly a jet? And how did that lead to her DEFECTING TO THE CHAIR FORCE?!**

 _ **201X**_ _  
Groom Lake (Area 51), Nevada Test & Training Range_

The cockpit canopy of the refurbished SR-71 Blackbird (painted a garish red that reportedly made it faster) popped open. The tiny pilot climbed out of the cramped cockpit and skipped over to the waiting news team. After a protracted moment of fumbling with the seal and latches of her fully pressurized flight suit, she removed her helmet.

Shimakaze grinned at the camera. "O~SO~I!" she taunted.

 ** _IN AD 201X, WAR WAS BEGINNING..._**

 **Later**  
 _Nevada Test & Training Range_

The canopy of the refurbished North American X-15 hypersonic rocket plane popped open. The diminutive pilot hauled herself out of the tight cockpit and trotted over to the waiting crew of the NASA-operated B-52 bomber that had served as the mothership for the long-delayed 200th flight of the X-15. The chuckling NASA personnel helped her open the seals of her pressurized space suit. One of them handed her a US flag sporting 48 stars, as during the time of its use Alaska and Hawaii had not yet attained statehood.

Maury beamed at the camera. "SLOW!" she crowed.

~o~

Even Later

 _Kazakhstan_

The hatch of the bullet-shaped reentry capsule of the Soyuz MS spacecraft popped open. Two small _spationaute_ attempted to exit the roomy descent module, only to get stuck for a few minutes because they tried to force their way out at the same time.

Freed by the pushing of the third crew member inside the module, the first two space travelers raced each other toward the Roskosmos recovery team, who expertly assisted them with their spacesuits while the third _cosmonaut_ finally emerged from the hatch.

Le Fantasque and Soldati crowded each other in front of the camera. "LAMBINI!"/ "LENTO!" they yelled simultaneously, as in the background their Russian companion took her helmet off on her own.

"(Uh...) medlennyy," mumbled the sheepish Osmotritelny, who really didn't want to pick a fight with Maury but didn't want to be left out of whatever this competition was.

~o~

 **At The Same Time**  
 _John F. Kennedy Space Center_

Challenger and Columbia traded knowing looks. No true red-blooded American astronauts could resist the gauntlet thrown by the Soviet destroyer _cosmonaut_.

"Let's find Intrepid," Challenger proposed.

"Enterprise wouldn't want to be left out of this," agreed Columbia.

~o~

 **Same Time**  
 _Yokosuka_

"Achoo!"

"Bless you, Commander."

"Thanks, Yamato."

~o~

 **Also The Same Time**  
 _Scapa Flow_

"Achoo!"

"Bless you, Light E."

"Gesundheit."

"Thanks, Ark Royal, Graf Zeppelin. And is it just me, Zepp, or did your appearance change?"

"What are you talking about? I've always looked like this. Right, Ark?"

"Of course, Zepp."

"If you say so..."

~o~

 **Still The Same Time**  
 _Intrepid Air & Space Museum_

"Achoo!"

"Bless you, Starship."

"Thanks, Fighting I. Someone must be talking about me."

~o~

 **A Few Minutes Before The Previous**  
 _Another Part of Scapa Flow_

Cavalier glared at her self-proclaimed rival. "No," she stated.

"Come on, Val!" begged HMS Rapid. "We can't lose out to the others!"

"I don't care. First off, bad things happen whenever we race-"

"I could have taken you if my safety valve didn't get lifted," complained Rapid for the nth time.

"Sure, whatever. Second, how are we going to beat a bloody spacecraft?" Cavalier pointed out. "The United Kingdom doesn't have an operational manned spacecraft!"

"With this!" And the R class destroyer pulled the tarpaulin off a-

"Rapid? That is a police box," sighed the C class destroyer.

"Wrong! It's a TARDIS!"

"Rapid... I don't know how to break this to you..." Cavalier knew she had to be cruel to Rapid to be kind. "But Doctor Who isn't real."

At that moment, the doors of the blue police box moved. And instead of opening outwards, as they should, the doors moved inwards, revealing it was... bigger on the inside.

Cavalier gaped at the silver-haired gentleman in the outlandish outfit consisting of a frilled shirt, velvet smoking jacket, and Inverness cape. He was accompanied by an American destroyer escort and a woman who appeared to be the missing Amelia Earhart.

"Hi, guys," Eldridge greeted the flabbergasted Brits.

"We heard there was a race going on," Earhart chuckled.

"I love races," declared the old man with the outrageous silver bouffant hairstyle. "Let me get my car."

"Hood is never going to believe this," Cavalier groaned while Rapid begged for an autograph from the impossible figure who resembled the most famous crewman of the British battlecruiser.


	234. Rule 757

**Rule 757. Please note, the CO's open door policy is not an excuse to shoot the breeze with the skipper.**

Admiral Briggs, alone among the Admiralty, had an open door policy with his shipgirls. Any of them could simply walk in and bring a problem to him, or just talk. He liked talking with his shipgirls. Certainly more than doing paperwork, to Augusta's aggravation. That this system worked was a testament to the parenting skills of the escort carriers and an unspoken agreement between the few heavy ships to not abuse the privilege.

Apparently nobody told Nevada.

"- and then California sent me some of those Japanese cartoons, but I think she might've mixed in some porn, too. Here, look."

Admiral Briggs took the proffered phone, looking over the picture of Ryuuko Matoi in her kamui.

"- she looks like Tenryuu, too, so I'm kinda wondering what California isn't telling us if she's looking at porn of a cartoon character that looks like Tenryuu and-"

"Actually, this isn't porn," Briggs interrupted.

"Wait, seriously?" Nevada responded. "Y'mean they actually broadcasted that on TV?" Briggs nodded, and Nevada let out a low whistle. "Daaaaamn. Why can't our broadcast companies be more like the Japanese guys?"

"Mostly because the cable channels have that covered," Briggs responded.

"Oh, right. I guess I forgot because I never watch those shows on TV anymore, it's all streaming. Hell, why the cable companies still exist is beyond me. Netflix was killing them as it is, and now with all this streaming they just seem so... irrelevant, don't ya know? And companies were taking potshots at them way back in 2010. Do you know how long ago that was? It's, like ancient! That was back when tablets were just the iPad and nothing else, and that was a..."

Briggs leaned back, a contented smile on his face as Nevada blathered on. As long as she kept talking, he could just sit back and relax, no paperwork done.

Then his door opened.

"Once again, I'm so sorry about my sister," he heard Oklahoma say.

"Don't worry about that." Briggs froze at that voice, trying to hide behind Nevada, who was sitting on his desk. "You learn about unruly sisters working here. Besides, this is at least half his fault. Isn't that right, _Admiral_?"

"Oh, hey, Augie, Okie!"

"Don't call me that!"

"Yes, please dispense with the nicknames."

Sighing, Briggs scooted his chair out from behind Nevada. "How can I help you girls?" he said, a fake smile plastered on his face.

Too late, he spotted the boxes both shipgirls were carrying, just as they lifted them up and slammed them onto his desk.

"Well, you could start with wrapping up the backlog of paperwork," Augusta replied, just a hint of smugness creeping in.

The fake smile on Briggs' face faltered slightly. "Oh, surely I only need to do the essential stuff," he said. "We have secretaries and such for the rest of it."

"Sir," Augusta replied, the smug fully visible. "This _is_ the essential stuff."

Briggs paled, and looked to Nevada - who was being dragged out of the room by a steamed Oklahoma.

"I'll be back tomorrow!" the battleship called back.

"Not if I have anything to say about it!"

He looked back to Augusta, and found no mercy in her eyes. She pulled a pen out of her pocket, and pressed it into his hands.

"Time to get started," she said, grinning.

~o~

"This sucks..." Omaha grumbled as she loaded another stack of papers into the shredder she and Somers were operating. "How does this base produce so much paper?!"

"And now you see why this is a punishment detail," the destroyer sighed as she fed another load in.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, they finished the stack and moved aside the cart full of shredded paper. That left only eight more stacks taller than they were. And that was before an orderly wheeled in another three.

"... We're never going to get this done, are we?" Omaha groaned.

"Nope. We just leave it for the next poor saps who were assigned the job."

"... I can live with that."


	235. Rule 760

**Rule 760: Do not ask the allied Abyssals how they produce more units. Command already knows and has ordered the allied Abyssals not to divulge that information to anyone else.  
**  
Take glanced nervously at the Re-class battleship sailing with the convoy she was helping protect. No matter how often her fellow kanmusu and the Americans insisted she was friendly, she was a goddamn Abyssal. She couldn't let go of her nervousness that quickly! At least everyone was understanding about it.

The golden tan the battleship was sporting didn't help. Abyssals should be ghostly pale, dammit!

Besides nervousness about being next to what should've been a goddamn enemy battleship, Take also had questions she'd long forgotten bubbling to the surface again. And the temptation to ask was getting stronger by the minute.

 _'Ah, fuck it,'_ she decided, tapping the throat to start up her radio. "Hey, Re-chan, how _do_ Abyssals get made?"

There was silence on the line for a moment before Re-chan answered. _[Oh, you wanna know how we reproduce? Oh, that's easy! When Seaport Princess and Midway Princess like each other, they hold hands and look into each other's eyes and blush and hug, and then an Abyssal Stork flies into the chimney to bring them Northern Ocean Princess!]  
_  
"That... doesn't sound right..." Take muttered. "Hmm. There's Hoppo-chan and that Wo back at base. Maybe I should ask them..."

~o~

[WOt. Just... WOt,] JDS WOrktown, allied Abyssal fleet carrier, deadpanned at the information Take had just delivered.

[I'm with the bird farm. What the fuck?] Hoppo-chan added.

"Yeah, I thought something was wrong with what she said," Take agreed. "So, that's not how Abyssals reproduce?"

[Oh, hell no,] WOrktown immediately denied. [How Re-chan got that into her head I have no idea...]

[I blame the popular media,] Hoppo-chan stated sagely. [It's full of misinformation and outright lies on how the world works. Fun to watch, though. Anyway, someone should go tell her how we _actually_ reproduce.]

[I'll contact Wreck,] WOrktown decided, rising to go send a message.

Take watched the carrier leave before turning back to Hoppo-chan. "So, how _do_ you guys reproduce, then?"

Hoppo told her.

~o~

"I've never seen anything like it," Akashi informed Kashima. "Six straight hours of projectile vomiting. What in the world did Hoppo tell her?"

"How Abyssals reproduce," the training cruiser replied. "Though how that resulted in this sort of reaction..."

"Ah." Akashi winced at that information. "Yeah, that would do it."

"Why?" Kashima wondered. "It can't be that bad."

"Trust me, it is," Akashi grimaced. "If you really want to know, talk to Admiral Goto."


	236. Rule 764

**Rule 764. Habakkuk, we realize that you're much taller and have a greater displacement then the other girls, but stop stealing the other carrier shipgirls to use as plushies when you go to bed! Yamato is getting rather pissed due to you always grabbing Yvonne!  
**  
Habakkuk was not like other shipgirls.

For one, she was huge. Like, breaking the ceiling huge. Second, where most shipgirls were warm, like people (and a few were even hotter), Habakkuk was ice cold. Which made sense, considering she was actually made of ice. Pykrete. Whatever. This also translated into lethargy and slow movement. You'd think that would make her easy to avoid.

Sadly, most people underestimate just how stealthy she could be. Like the carrier Enterprise.

"Ack!" Enterprise yelped as Habakkuk grabbed her from behind. "Dammit, Habakkuk, we've been over this! Let go!"

"Soft..." Habakkuk murmured, squeezing Enterprise closer and nuzzling her hair. "Fuzzy... warm..."

Enterprise's eyes widened as Habakkuk started to slowly amble away. "Fuck, no!" She began squirming in the iceberg's grip, to no avail. "Not agaaaaaaain!"

Soon, carrier and iceberg were ensconced in the latter's bed, Enterprise pressed against Habakkuk's chest in a loving embrace. Albeit one that was making her ribs creak ominously, and forced her to burn entirely too much fuel to keep from freezing.

"This bites..." she groaned, before settling in for another night as Habakkuk's personal snuggle toy. Yay her.

An hour passed, then two, the only sound that of Habakkuk's breathing. And then the door swung open.

"Dammit, Habakkuk!" Yamato shouted, jabbing an accusing finger at Enterprise's kidnapper. "Enterprise is mine! Do you hear me? Mine!"

Habakkuk blinked sleepily, then slowly sat up, letting Enterprise fall from her embrace.

"Ah, good girl," Yamato crooned. "Just let Enterprise go- Why are you looking at me like that?" The battleship took an involuntary step back as Habakkuk got out of bed and stood up, ambling towards her. "Ah, no! Stay away!" She turned a pleading look at her girlfriend. "E! Help me!"

Unfortunately for Yamato, Enterprise was already gone.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she shouted as Habakkuk wrapped her up in her constrictor-like grip and dragged her into her room.

~o~

Some distance away, Enterprise glanced behind her as she heard the shout.

"I'm going to pay for that later, no doubt," she muttered to herself. "Sorry, honey, but I have been on Habakkuk duty way too many times."

She rounded a corner - and came face to face with Junyo, red-faced and swaying, her clothes in disarray.

"Want some?" the carrier slurred, pushing forward a glass bottle with... something in it. Enterprise glanced at the label. Grappe - she must have been drinking with Pola again. Crap, now how was she supposed to handle a drunken carrier? It wasn't like they had anything like a drunk tank that could hold-

Enterprise grinned. "I~de~a!" She reached out and gently pushed the bottle away. "No, thank you. But I do know of a good stash nearby I've been meaning to share."

In her drunken state, Junyou didn't question it, and allowed herself to be lead by Enterprise, periodically taking swigs from the bottle. Soon, they were back in front of Habakkuk's room, and Enterprise swung the door open.

"E, you traitor!" Yamato shouted immediately. "I thought you loved me!"

"And I still do, which is why I brought this," the carrier replied, reaching back and shoving Junyou in.

"Whu...?" Junyou mumbled, swaying, before locking onto Habakkuk's massive form looming over her. "Big..."

Stepping forward, Enterprise carefully eased Habakkuk's fingers open, grabbed Junyou, shoved her in, and hastily yanked out Yamato.

"Forgiven?" Enterprise asked as Habakkuk ambled back to bed.

Yamato hummed thoughtfully. "Only if you we go on that vacation to Hakone I've always wanted to do."

Enterprise grimaced slightly, but nodded. "Of course, honey."


	237. Rule 765

**Rule 765. Due to last night's party in Halifax, the drinking of high-sugar drinks, particularly Beep, is prohibited on base.  
**  
Admiral Goto grimaced as he looked over the damage report the Royal Canadian Navy had sent out to all the navies of the world after a party a few days prior. Whatever this "Beep" stuff was, it was devastating when consumed by smaller shipgirls. Which, considering those shipgirls made up the majority of the Canadian Navy, had led to the incapacitation of everyone at the party. Goto made a mental note to see if anyone sold Beep here in Japan, and then petition the Diet to ban it.

As if summoned by that thought, Tenryuu nearly threw his door off the hinges.

"Admiral, help!" she panted. "My girls got into a crate of this stuff called 'Beep', and now they're acting like Shimakaze on a sugar high!"

Goto groaned, letting his head fall into his hands. Dammit, now he'd owe the Russians another favor! The only way this could get worse was-

There was a flash of orange light, and suddenly, standing in the middle of his office, was Shimakaze. Only, it wasn't Shimakaze as they knew her. Her usual outfit had been replaced by a purple dress-shirt-and-slacks combo, with an orange vest over it. Orange heart-shaped sunglasses adorned her eyes, and her hair ribbon had been replaced with a severe black headband. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up, revealing arms far more sculpted than Shimakaze normally possessed. And her whole body seemed... harder, somehow.

"It is too late, Admiral," Shimakaze intoned. "I can see everything."

At that, she glanced to a random corner of the room, and vanished in another flash of orange, mere milliseconds before Kongo tumbled out of nowhere and hit the ground.

"Get back here you little brat!" she shouted, before diving into one of Goto's potted plants and vanishing.

Both Tenryuu and Goto stared at the center of the room for several minutes before the light cruiser finally managed to choke something out.

"What."

"I... don't know," Goto choked out. "I just... Okay. Shimakaze never drinks Beep again, and we forget this all happened, agreed?"

"Agreed," Tenryuu nodded fervently.

"Ah, don't worry, Admiral," Iku said as she suddenly popped her head in. "She didn't actually get into the Beep. That was just the liter of colored Red Bull I left out to lure her away."

The submarine, proving she still had some self-preservation instincts left, shrank under the combined glares of Goto and Tenryuu.

"Well, well, well, it looks like we've got a new volunteer for subhunting practice," Goto leered.

"The girls are going to be happy to hear that when they come down from their sugar high," Tenryuu agreed, her grin positively sharklike.


	238. Rule 769

**Rule 769. When talking to the various Capital Ship Girls, do not bring up their historical ages. It's a rather... Touchy subject for them and reactions vary from inconsolable depression to blinding rage.  
**  
"The what?" Stuart asked, a skeptical eyebrow raised.

"The five stages of age grief," Vampire answered smugly. "I've got the evidence to prove it!"

"Alright, smartass, I'll play along," Stuart replied. "What are these five stages of... age grief?"

"Well, the first stage, obviously, is denial."

~o~

"Hey, granny Kongo," Shimakaze greeted as she passed by the battleship.

Kongo staggered, her face paling and blood pooling in her mouth. "G-Granny?" she whispered.

Shimakaze paused and turned around, frowning. "Yeah, Granny," she repeated. "You're, like, over a hundred. The only one around older than you is Yakumo, and she's _ancient_."

"I-I can't be a Granny," Kongo muttered. "I-I'm still youthful. I-I can still get a man."

Shimakaze continued to stare at the battleship before shrugging. "Eh, whatever, Granny. See ya around."

As the destroyer left, Kongo stayed where she was, leaning against the wall, until the fire blazed back to life in her eyes.

"I'll show you!" she shouted to no one in particular. "I'm not a Granny! I'm still young inside and out, no matter how many years I have on my hull!"

And with that, she ran to the quarters she shared with Admiral Goto. It was time for _that_ set...

~o~

"The second is anger..."

~o~

"Hey, Granny."

Yavuz froze, her head tick-ticking back to look at Vampire.

"What did you just call me?"

"Granny," the destroyer repeated. "What, hard of hearing in your old age?"

"YOU'RE ONLY SIX YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME, YOU LITTLE BRAT!" Yavuz shrieked.

"Yeah, but I still look young and cute, while you..." Vampire's grin became downright _vicious_. "Wait, is that a white hair I see?"

Yavuz's eyes widened as she grabbed her long blond tresses and began frantically examining them, only stopping when Vampire's laughter broke through the panic.

"Oh, man, I can't believe you actually fell for that!" Vampire laughed, clutching her belly. "Man, you really do think you're old!"

"Shut up _shut up SHUT UP!"_ Yavuz snarled, stomping towards the destroyer.

"Ha! You'll never catch me!" Vampire taunted as she skipped back. "Not with old age slowing you down!"

"GRAAAAAAAAAH!"

~o~

"So that's why Yavuz was breaking Greek columns again..." Stuart muttered.

"The third is bargaining..."

~o~

"Hey, where's Cavour?" Andrea Doria asked as she and Giulio Cesare walked to the firing range. "We have firing practice in five minutes!"

"She thought she saw another wrinkle and ran to the pharmacy to grab some more anti-wrinkle cream," Cesare replied, sighing. "Honestly, that girl is obsessed."

"Yeah, she needs to learn to chill out and learn the joys of periodic refits," Doria agreed as the two battleships arrived at the firing range, Caio Duilio already sending shots at the targets. And she was grinning her usual grin when she had juicy information.

"Alright, spill," Andrea Doria said as she unslung her guns. "We all know you're dying to tell us something, so just spit it out."

Caio Duilio didn't stop grinning as she replied. "Well, the Koreans apparently have this new plastic surgery procedure for shipgirls. The company is claiming it'll make adult shipgirls look a decade younger!"

"What!"

The other three battleships turned around to see Cavour staring Duilio, drooling.

"Is this true!" she demanded.

"Yup," Duilio replied, popping the p. "Expensive, though."

"Don't care, gonna go talk to the Admiral now!"

Andrea Doria and Giulio Cesare watched, bemused, as Cavour bolted out of the range as fast as her engines could take her, then turned back to Duilio. "That was mean," Doria stated.

"Why, I have no idea what you're talking about," Duilio smugly replied.

"Some of us actually keep up with the news and know that Japan finally shared shipgirl technology with the Koreans," Cesare countered. "So really, she's going to Korea just to get a refit she could've gotten for free here."

"Yup."

"Like I said, mean."

~o~

"The fourth stage is depression."

~o~

Pola rummaged through her collection of alcohol. Fine wines, cheap wines, champagnes, Russian vodka, Scottish whiskey, grappe, Kentucky bourbon, and nine kinds of moonshine and rotgut. Making a decision, she piled up a bottle of everything and exited her room.

Courbet was right where she'd left her, on the couch sobbing into a pillow. That was good.

"It's not fair," she sobbed. "I'm useless in a fight. I'm useless as a teacher. And now I can't even get by on good looks because I'm o~ho~hold!"

Pola plopped down next to the bawling battleship, dropping the bottle of vodka next to her head and popping open a bottle of the wine.

"You don't understand, Pola. Nobody really understands, not even my sisters. Why? Why do we gotta get old? M-Maybe I should just go challenge an Abyssal battleship and-"

*CLONK!*

Courbet's head popped up, a heated glare directed at Pola. "What was that for?!"

"More drinking, less angsting," the heavy cruiser replied as she shook the vodka bottle.

Courbet eyed the liquor, then snatched it out of Pola's hand, tore off the neck, and upended the bottle in her mouth. She gulped down the alcohol like a marathon runner chugging water, throat bobbing until the last of the liquid was gone. She lifted the bottle up, shook out the last few drops, and then tossed the bottle over her shoulder, where it shattered on the flor.

"This drink, I like it," she slurred. "Another!"

Pola mentally shrugged and handed over the bourbon.

~o~

"And finally, acceptance."

"Are you talking about other ships' ages again, Vampire?" Queen Elizabeth asked as she walked by, still in her swimsuit and clearly just returned from a day of sunbathing at the beach. "You know most of them don't take that well."

"Oh, I was just explaining the five stages of age grief to Stuart," Vampire explained.

"Ah. And I assume I'm the example for acceptance?"

"Yup!"

Queen Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know why they get so worked up about it. We're sentient warships reincarnated into human form. Why would we age like normal humans?"


	239. Rule 774

**Rule 774. I do not know how the hell you did it without being caught but will the person who took those candid pictures of the Seaport Princess and Seaport Water Demon topless stop hiding and step forth.  
**  
Admirals Goto and Holloway looked over the gathered shipgirls, who for their part squirmed uncomfortably but didn't say anything. After a few tense minutes, Holloway reached into his uniform jacket and pulled out a small stack of photographs, tossing them onto Goto's desk. Each one was a very good candid shot of the Seaport Princess and Seaport Water Demon - completely topless.

"I see you recognize those photos," Goto stated as the shipgirls all drooled. "I want to know which one of you took them."

All the shipgirls present paled, one immediately throwing out a denial.

"I-It wasn't me this time!" Aoba frantically denied. "I swear by Gensui Togo!"

Holloway quirked an eyebrow. "I take it that's serious?"

"Quite," Goto replied. "My shipgirls worship the man. Literally. There's a shrine with incense and everything."

Filing that mildly disturbing thought away, Holloway turned to the next shipgirl.

"Not Iku!" Iku, aka I-19, denied, unconsciously clutching her breasts. "Guh, it makes my boobies hurt just thinking about it. I learned my lesson with Kongo and Sealion."

Both Goto and Holloway winced at the memory, and turned to the next shipgirl.

"Don't look at me! The only boobs I'd want to look at are New Jersey's!" Johnston groused.

New Jersey, who was chaperoning the American destroyer, scowled and slapped her upside the head.

"God dammit, Johnston!"

The gazes of the admirals turned to the last shipgirl.

"Master! How could you think it was me?" Sazanami asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

Akebono, who was Sazanami's chaperone, scowled. "Because you uploaded those perverted pictures of Ushio to that image board, that's why!"

"Aoba took those pictures!" Sazanami shot back.

"Hey, don't hang me out to dry!" Aoba added. "We split those profits 50/50, remember?"

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped ten degrees as Aoba and Sazanami found the attention of most everyone in the room directed at them. The two started shivering and clutching at each other.

"Wow," Johnston stated.

"I know, right?" Iku agreed, grinning lecherously. "Oh, those were such good pictures."

 _"Wow."  
_  
"Congrats, you little perverts," New Jersey snarked. "You managed to get _Johnston_ of all little shits disgusted. That takes fucking _talent_."

 _"Wow!"  
_  
Hands clamped onto Aoba's and Sazanami's shoulders, one each. Slowly, they turned to find Kongo standing over them, smiling beatifically. Goto would later swear he could see the "Go go go" sound effects wafting about her.

"Sazanami-chan. Aoba-chan. May I have a moment of your time?"

~o~

"So," Admiral Holloway said once the screaming stopped and the other shipgirls were dismissed. "If it wasn't any of the usual suspects, then who was it?"

"I'm as clueless as you are," Goto shrugged, looking over the photographs. "Anyway, where's Wreck right now?"

"Iowa and Wisconsin are helping her blow off some steam," came the answer.

Goto winced. "What'd they do this time?"

"Eh, you'll find out. Just keep an eye on the rules."

~o~

Kisaragi let out a contented sigh as she watched the maple leaves fall around her in the park she sat in. She remained there as a dog equipped with a vest, headset, and a pair of torpedoes trotted up to her.

"Did you get them?" she asked the dog.

"Ruff! Ruff ruff," PT-109 barked. (Of course I did. Who do you think I am?)

Kisaragi took the camera off the dog's back and began flipping through the previews, her grin growing with each picture. "Excellent work, as usual. And do the Admirals suspect?"

"Ruff! Ruff ruff ruff!" (You were expecting shipsl*ts and lewdmarines, but it was me! Miiisteeer Keeeennedyyyy~ Kennedyyyy~!)

The destroyer giggled. "I'm going to take that as a yes."


	240. Rule 775

**By Sheo Darren**

 **Rule 775. While Calling the Seaport Hime the "MILF Princess" is not strictly forbidden, we would like to remind you that the last ten men she's caught referring to her as such have "Mysteriously Disappeared". Take from that what you will and we'll get you your Darwin Awards ready.**

 **201X**  
 _This is the Enemy Waters_  
The Pacific

"Ah... Darwin-chan?"

"Yes, Admiral?"

"Why do you have-" Suwabe paused a moment to count heads. "-ten human males dressed in-" He stopped again, this time for a bit longer. "-bondage leather chained to your room?"

"They're my harem," is the serious reply of the Installation Type Abyssal Princess who towered head, shoulders, and chest over her admiral.

"...Darwin-chan, you're not allowed to have a harem," sighed Suwabe.

A sad pout looked very odd on the normally stoic face of Seaport Princess. "Is it because I'm just a ship-girl?" she asked.

"Ah, no, it's not that. And where did you get the idea that a ship-girl can have a harem?"

"Enterprise has a harem."

"What?"

"Yes. She has Yamato-"

"Okay, that's true," conceded Suwabe. Even the Abyssals knew of the unsinkable ship YamaPrise.

"-Tenryuu, Destroyer Division 6, Zuikaku, Shoukaku, U-511 -oh, I meant to say Ro-500-, Dechi-"

"You mean I-58. Or Goya."

"Thank you, Admiral. So... Goya, Fuso, and Yamashiro."

"Darwin-chan, dear, that's Enterprise's task force. Except for Fuso and Yamashiro," Suwabe corrected himself. "They belong to Admiral KCT and are just on loan to Enterprise."

Seaport Hime put on a pensive expression. "So... ship-girls can't have harems," she repeated.

"Yes, that's correct."

"But ship-boys can have harems?" she continued.

"What," groaned Suwabe.

"Harder has a harem. He has Naka-"

"She is his girlfriend, yes."

"-Sendai, Jintsuu-"

"Wait, those are Naka's sisters," Suwabe pointed out.

"Yes. Sisters are the best. They even put that to the test," Seaport Princess innocently paraphrased.

"That is not how science works..."

"-Ikazuchi, Minazuki, Hayanami, Tanikaze, a destroyer whose name I can't remember, Matsuwa, Hiburi-"

"Those are the escort ships Harder sank during the war-"

"-Hyakuni, Nijuuni-"

"-and those are the ships who sank him," he finished.

"-Clemson, Edsall, Paul Jones, John D. Edwards, Alden, Whipple, Barker, Parrott, Bulmer, John D. Ford, Pope, Peary, Pillsbury, Mississippi, German-speaking Japanese submarine, Lewdmarine, Asashio, Ooshio, Maya, Kongou, Bucky-"

"Are you just citing names at random? And wait, who is this Bucky?"

"Gato, Hake, Albacore, Barb, Cavalla, Darter, Dace, Flasher, Growler, Grunion, Trigger, Tunny, and Wahoo-"

Suwabe's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Those are Harder's **brothers** and **half-brothers**!" he gagged.

"Brothers, like sisters," Seaport Princess began anew.

"No!" the frantic Suwabe cut her off. "Just.. no! Ship-boys are not allowed to have harems, either!"

Seaport Princess looked disappointed. Her admiral felt like she'd punched him in the belly.

Then she perked up. Suwabe now felt DOOM.

"So if I became an Admiral," she elucidated. "I can keep my harem?"

"What?"

"Admirals have harems."

"You girls are **not** my harem," wheezed Suwabe. He had made it clear to his girls when they first met that he was married and he loved his wife. His girls were his precious daughters.

"But the human Admiral Briggs has a harem," Seaport Princess brought up.

"What."

"Yes. He has Texas, New York, Wasp, Augusta, White Plains, Guadalcanal, England, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Arkansas, Riddle, Baker, and Cincinnati, but the last is a tsundere and refuses to consider herself part of the harem."

Suwabe considered the list. He was pretty sure England, Riddle, and Baker were destroyer escorts, which made them younger than the Akatsuki class destroyer ship-girls, who were positively tiny. The same rule held for the escort carriers Guadalcanal and White Plains, who would be younger than Ryoujou.

"And Admiral Settle has Arizona, Shoukaku, Higgins, William D. Porter, Samuel B. Roberts, Shigure, and Lieutenant Hate."

"WHAT."

"And Admiral Goto has-" Seaport Princess paused. "Kongou."

Wishing he had brain bleach at hand right now, Suwabe braced himself for more horrors.

To his surprise, Seaport Princess remained silent. "And?" he reluctantly asked.

"Just Kongou." Then she added: "Dess."

"...I was expecting you to name all of the girls in Yokosuka," the relieved Suwabe sighed while rubbing his strained chest.

"KonGoto is my OTP," Seaport Princess stated in all seriousness.

"I can ship that." Suwabe massaged his throbbing temples. "I'm going to call Admiral Goto. I'll let him know these humans are safe."

"So if I make them my 'pets'," asked Seaport Princess as she obediently followed her admiral to his office, since she was the secretary ship for today, what with Suwabe's usual personal assistant Ru Class away on a joint fleet exercise with Kirishima, Washington, and South Dakota.

"No, Darwin-chan. Just because Nagato got I Class #1597072 as a pet doesn't mean you can do the same for humans." Suwabe missed that I Class destroyer. She was a good girl. But she was in a better place now, sharing berths with a squirrel and a spider.

"What if I adopt them?"

"No, using Nagato adopting Hoppou-chan as an example is not allowed."

"Boo."

"Why do you even have them over?" Suwabe asked as he entered his office.

"They called me the MILF Princess," replied Seaport Princess.

Suwabe stopped dead in his tracks with his back presented to his subordinate.

"I liked it," she added.

He turned around. His normally relaxed features had gone taut and his eyes burned like wildfire. He reached up to stroke his goatee while smiling like the villain that some human propaganda had painted him as.

Seaport Princess knew that her admiral was happily married. And she was happy that he thought of her as his daughter. But she still could not help but think that he was so attractive when he entered Serious Mode.

"Well, someone just won a Darwin Award," stated Admiral Suwabe as he headed back to Seaport Princess' room to the tune of the 4th Movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony playing from Seaport Hime's Pip-Boy. No one makes fun of his girls and gets away with it.


	241. Rule 779

**Rule 779. A reminder to our human support staff that you are squishy and easy to break. Copping a feel on a shipgirl is done at your own risk.  
**  
Lieutenant James Harden grinned as he watched the shipgirls stream into O'Bannon's Irish Pub. Being posted to one of the Royal Navy's few frigates still afloat, he rarely saw them from anywhere closer than a mile, and so the pub was the best place to watch. That destroyers rarely ventured here was a bonus; he wasn't interested in jailbait.

But everyone else... the tall, slender carriers, the leggy cruisers with their ample sterns, the large-breasted battleships... oh, it was just perfect!

Taking another sip of his beer, Harden grinned even wider as he saw what appeared to be a battleship walking by. And, from the casual clothing she wore (not that the costumes most shipgirls wore were bad), possibly more receptive to his advances. As she passed by, he reached out with his hand and gave her a light swat on her rear.

Almost instantly, Lieutenant Harden's world was _pain_. Some part of his brain that wasn't completely overwhelmed recognized that his hand seemed to have been turned into something the approximate consistency of jelly.

"'Chu touch mah mo'fukkin' ass agen, an' Ah'll do da same thang to yo' overly thick skull!" Revenge snarled. With that, she released his hand and continued on her way.

The pain subsided for Lieutenant Harden just enough for him to get a good look at his hand. Or rather, the mangled sack of flour that used to be his hand. He looked over the crowd for sympathy, only to receive shakes of the head and a lot of derisive muttering.

~o~

"Good~ mooooorning~ Indy~!"

Reacting on instinct, Indiana grabbed her attacker by the face, peeled her off and slammed her into the wall in one fluid motion.

"For fuck's sake, Quincy junior, my breasts are not your personal-"

The battleship trailed of as instead of a mildly stunned heavy cruiser, she looked at a rather normal female seaman - who was bleeding rather profusely from the head.

"Oh, shoot!" Indiana yelped. "Medic!"

~o~

Kirishima sighed as the train she was on swayed again, squishing her into the crowd. The things she did to go to conventions... At least her costume was more practical than in years past. For a given value of 'practical', of course; the Suzumiya Haruhi school uniform at least looked like normal clothing.

As the battleship stood up straight again, she felt a hand brush up against her rear. No biggie. Then it clamped down. Definitely a biggie. Sighing, she shifted her weight, lifted up her foot, and-

*CRUNCH*

"YARGH!"

 _"Akihabara. We are arriving at Akihabara."  
_  
Kirishima followed the crowd out of the train, leaving the unfortunate salaryman kneeling on the floor, clutching his shattered foot, an imprint of her shoe plainly visible. He opened his mouth, perhaps to threaten something - and then one of her fairies popped out of her hair and gave him the finger. Any complaints died in his throat, especially as the remaining passengers turned to glare at him.


	242. Rule 783

**Rule 783. Ship girls are not allowed to write fiction for the same reason listed in rule 782.  
**  
"Admiral, help!"

Admiral Holloway looked up as Hornet, the older one, burst into his office, panting like she'd just run a marathon and looking thoroughly panicked.

"What's up, Hornet?" he asked, sitting back in his chair.

Before Hornet could answer, Wright appeared behind the other aircraft carrier, looking apologetic. "Sorry, sir, she just blew past me." Her gaze hardened, and her hand darted out to grab Hornet by the ear. "And you! The Admiral has better things to do than listen to you blather on about your fanfic!"

"It's not a fanfic!" Hornet retorted, digging in her heels with all the horsepower she could muster. "It's a tale of high adventure and romance, and the lawyers at Amazon said it was okay to publish!"

"You just filed the serial numbers off!"

"And what's wrong with that, huh?!"

Holloway noted that his wall was creaking rather ominously, and moved to defuse the situation.

"Wait, Wright," he interjected. "I have a feeling there's more to this story than that. Right, Hornet?"

Hornet flinched as Holloway's gaze bore down on her, clearing stating "There had _better_ be more to it."

"I, uh, might have been contacted by Universal about a movie deal," Hornet muttered, poking her fingers together.

Wright, stunned, let go of her ear in favor of gaping openly. Dimly, Admiral Holloway felt himself doing the same.

"Hornet... how many people have bought your book?" the carrier said weakly.

"I haven't checked in a while, but it was at a few hundred thousand the last time I did so," Hornet replied.

Holloway blinked, and then tore a piece of paper off of his notepad and scribbled a few notes onto it. "Here," he said, holding out the slip. "This'll get you in with the lawyers the navy has on retainer. In the meantime, check your Amazon stats, and your bank account. I think you might be surprised."

"Thank you, sir!" Hornet saluted, before leaving.

For a few minutes, both admiral and secretary ship were silent, before Holloway started counting down on his fingers. "Three... two... one..."

"WHAT?!"

~o~

Holloway staggered into his office. He'd been forced to sit in on the contract negotiations between the navy lawyers and Universal's. Popular culture may have liked to relate lawyers to sharks, but in Holloway's experience sharks were the less tenacious and vicious of the two.

Shambling past Wright, he plopped down into his thankfully comfy chair, his secretary ship immediately putting a mug of coffee and a pair of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies in front of him.

"Thanks," he muttered as he dug in. Once the caffeine and sugar started taking effect, he turned on his computer and began composing an email to every shipgirl on base.

 _"To all,_

 _It has come to my attention that some of you have been writing fiction, fan and otherwise, in your spare time. Please step forward so that we may go over your work to make sure it is appropriate and so we do not get blindsided by another movie deal._

 _Admiral Holloway."_

A tap of the 'send all' button, and he sat back and waited for the flood of emails. It didn't take long. Most were incredulous demands to know who had gotten a goddamn movie deal. As such, it took some time before the first email with an actual story dropped into his inbox. Mentally noting that it was from Missouri of all people, he clicked on the link and started reading.

"AUGH, WHY?!"

Wright burst into his office to find the admiral on the floor clutching his eyes. "Admiral, what's wrong?!"

"Get the repair ships in here!" Holloway shouted in obvious agony. "I need new eyes! And a new brain!"

~o~

"Wow..." Goto said to Holloway. "That's, uh... I guess Missouri decided she'd had enough of just consuming and decided to produce."

 _"I think I'd have preferred not to have such a detailed look into her deepest, darkest desires,"_ Holloway grumbled.

The Japanese admiral let out a derisive snort. "At least your examples didn't have pictures."

Holloway blinked over the video conference, then paled dramatically. _"Wait, don't tell me-!"  
_  
"Yup," Goto answered. "Doujins."

A groan over the call. _"Let me guess: I-19?"  
_  
"Her and Akigumo," Goto replied. "And that was before they teamed up. I had to ban all doujin writing, and Akigumo hasn't forgiven me for it."

 _"So that's what I have to do? Ban it?"  
_  
"Only if it starts eating into their productivity or if it causes legal problems," came the reply. "That doujin writing was doing _both_."

 _"I see... well, thank you for your help."  
_  
"No problem."


	243. Rule 785

**AN: Meet a newcomer to the bonus chapters, Jacky2734!**

 **785\. Notice: stealing a battleship's wardrobe and leaving behind nothing but a trench coat and a string bikini WILL result in you becoming a target for their Live Fire Exercises.  
**

" **IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!** "

The mess hall went dead silent as all eyes fell upon the self proclaimed "Lewdest Submarine", wondering what trouble she could have possibly caused this time.

They didn't need to wonder long as the Mess's doors were blown off their hinges and the USS Wisconsin came stomping in, emanating an aura of murder and - strangely - wrapped tightly in an old-fashioned trench coat.

Reacting on instincts honed from months of running away from angry bath goers, I-19 burst out of her seat and rushed towards the nearest exit. Unfortunately, against one of the fastest battleships ever built, her efforts were in vain and she quickly found herself dangling upside down from an iron grip on her ankle, held up to look the battleship in her blazing eyes.

"Alright you little succubus," Wisconsin growled. "Where are they?"

A look of genuine confusion swept across Iku's face. "Uh, what?" she asked.

"Don't give me that shit," the battleship practically yelled. "I know it was you who took them."

"I-I-I h-honestly don't know w-what you're talking about, Wisconsin-sempai," Iku stammered in genuine fear.

The lewdmarine would later swear the glare Wisconsin was giving her could have pierced through 20" of armor.

"So," Wisconsin began in a frighteningly quiet voice. "You're saying you weren't the one who snuck into my quarters while I was showering, stole every scrap of clothing I owned, and left behind nothing but a trench coat and THIS!?"

The mighty Iowa-Class Battleship emphasized the last word by ripping open the coat and revealing what she had on underneath. As she gazed upon the skimpy little string bikini that was obviously two sizes too small for it's current wearer, Iku swore she could have died happy right then and there. Until she remembered that that was probably what was going to happen if she didn't do something quick.

Wiping the drool off her cheek, the submarine quickly brought her hands up in front of her face as a show of submissiveness. "It wasn't me!" she yelped.

"Oh really?" Wisconsin asked, not the least bit convinced.

"It wasn't me, it wasn't me," Iku repeated, now openly crying. "I-I swear on Musashi's rack. P-Please don't kill me, not before I've gotten Fubuki in my bed!"

An indignant "What!" and an embarrassed "Eep" were heard from somewhere in the growing crowd.

Feeling kind of bad for make the little sub cry, Wisconsin set her down on a bench.

"Wait," she stated in a much gentler voice, waiting for the sub to stop crying before she continued. "You really didn't steal my clothes?"

"Absolutely not," the accused sub stated as if she'd just been insulted. "I haven't done the stolen clothes job in months. Not since Tenryuu caught me in DesDiv 6's room."

Wisconsin's eye twitched as she remembered exactly who she was talking to.

"So if you didn't do it, then who did?" she asked.

"Well, now that you mention it," Iku stated with a thoughtful look on her face. "I did see O'Bannon sneaking out of the Battleships' barracks with a large bag while I was, uh... conducting research."

"Is that so," Wisconsin pondered. "Well in that case, do you know where I could find the little potato chucker?"

"Well," the sub stated with a wicked grin on her face. "You could start by looking behind you. She's currently trying to sneak outside."

Turning her head ever so slowly, the mighty battleship spotted the now frozen and nervous destroyer, who, up until a second ago, had been doing her best impression of Solid Snake.

"O'Bannon," Wisconsin called out in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Just the ship I was looking for."

 **Two Hours Later  
Target Range**

Wisconsin, now properly clothed, stood in front of the seven other American battleships, consisting of her three sisters, Washington, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Arizona.

"Alright ladies," she called out with a wicked grin. "We're doing something a little different for today's practice. We'll all be aiming for the same target, at the same time, but the goal is to land the shot as close to the target as possible without actually hitting it. Any questions?"

"Um," Iowa spoke up. "What's the fucking target?"

Wisconsin's grin was now downright evil. "I'm so glad you asked, sis," she responded as she moved aside and pointed 3000 yards down range, where an absolutely terrified O'bannon was currently tied to a pole.


	244. Rule 789

**_By: Firefinder12_**

 ** _789\. After the latest events Hawaii is not allowed energy drinks at all.  
_**

"Sun shining, the birds are chirping, and I've got a case of Beep. Yup... today is perfect," Haida said to herself as she took a sip. Taking a look around the United States Naval base she muttered, "But utterly boring..."

Movement off to the side got her attention and as she shifted her focus, she saw that it was one of the Alaska class sisters, Hawaii.

As Haida watched the large cruiser walk by an idea formed in her head. Looking at the case of Beep and back to Hawaii, she grinned.

"Why not? Got nothing better to do and besides, what's the worst that could happen?" she said to herself as the destroyer ran to catch up to the cruiser.

*******5 Hours Later*******

Haida awoke with a groan. Her everything was sore and she couldn't move, was she tied down?

"Ah, you're awake. So, Haida. What have we learned today?"

Haida's eyes snapped open at the question, which gave her a view of the Admiral Briggs, US Navy, who was squatting down to bring himself to eye level. Ingrained reactions tried to assert themselves and she attempted to salute or stand up or _anything_ , but something continued to hold her back.

"Yeah, you're not going anywhere until she wakes up," Briggs drawled, nodding at something behind her.

Twisting her head as far as she could, Haida saw that she was wrapped up in a bear hug by a quietly snoring Hawaii. Her reaction was befitting of her stature.

"Huh?"

"Apparently someone thought it would be a great idea to give Hawaii some Beep," the admiral stated before giving her the look. "Two whole cases of Beep. Wonder who that could be?"

The look that he gave Haida told her that he knew.

"Uh... I was bored?" she replied before flinching at the glare he pinned her with. She hastily changed the subject. "What happened?"

"Besides Hawaii doing an amazing impression of the Flash? Nothing much besides her using you as a weapon against several dozen Abyssals, screaming 'Fore!' every time." Admiral Briggs grinned at her look of disbelief; not surprising, since Hawaii was well known to be shyer then a frightened housecat. "I may have to take her with me the next time I go golfing. She had a mean form. Anyway, several of you friends tried to stop her but Connie and Acadia put a stop to that once they started to load weapons after the twentieth try. They were doing safety classes last I checked. Besides, Hurricane Hawaii can't be bargained with, reasoned with or stopped. You just have to buckle down and wait for the end."

"Really?" There wasn't really anything else to say to that. "That explains why I'm sore."

"Being used as a golf club would do that," Briggs nodded. "After Hawaii passed out, I had Jason bring you both in and hit you with a repair bucket."

Haida nodded at that, gotta love the USN logistics system. Wiggling a bit be more and finding herself still unable to move, she sighed and sent a pleading look at the American Admiral. "Help?"

"Sorry but no can do," he said, shaking his head. "Once you are in Hawaii's grasp you ARE NOT leaving until she lets you go. Anyway, once she does I need a twenty thousand word essay from you on why it's a bad idea to sneak people drinks." He held up a hand as she try to speak. "Don't try to deny it. We have video evidence of you doing just that. Consider youself lucky that Hawaii's sisters aren't here, nor is her father figure, for want of a better term. They're rather overprotective. As it is I'm going to have to pull some strings to keep them away for a bit until they cool off. With Chicago uploading the video, they've probably seen it already."

A beep sounded from his pocket, and Admiral Briggs pulled out his phone to check his messages. "Huh, speak of the devil. twelve thousand views already? And eight thousand for the picture of you two cuddling? This is going to be fun, I can already tell," he snarled.

Haida nodded as she did her best to not to sulk. "I understand, sir. I'll get on that as soon as I can, sir."

"Good girl."

"Zzz zzz."


	245. Rule 790

**Rule 790. For all shipgirls, blowing off the orders of officers outside your chain of command with the line "You're not my real mom/dad/Admiral!" is ill-advised.  
**  
Another day, another convoy handed off, this one from China to the United States. As the small escort group, led by the light cruiser Jintsuu, began steaming back for Japan from the Puget Sound region (with a few stops to shoot up any Abyssal submarine bases intel had found), they paid little attention to the fate of the cargo ships and the US Navy task force shepherding it through the Juan de Fuca Straight. At least, not until Jintsuu's radio crackled.

 _"Jintsuu, I need you to turn your task force around and assist the escort we sent,"_ Admiral Holloway ordered, in full clear, something that caused every shipgirl's eyes to widen. _"They've been ambushed by a large number of Abyssal light craft, and you're the only force that can respond in time."  
_  
"And Admiral Richardson?" the light cruiser inquired.

 _"He's... preoccupied at the moment."  
_  
Jintsuu nodded, mentally translating that to 'Busy making sure his shipgirls stay alive'. She opened her mouth to respond-

"Hey, you shitty admiral!" Akebono cut in. "You don't get to give me orders like that! You're not my real dad!"

Silence fell over the task force, broken only by the waves and the occasional cawing gull flying overhead. Akebono steadily turned redder and redder as everyone stared at her.

"So cute, Ake-chan," Jintsuu cooed, coming up behind the destroyer and ruffling her hair. "But we should probably listen to Admiral Holloway, okay?"

Still flame-faced, Akebono nodded.

~o~

"Zara!" Admiral Masson shouted as she threw open the door to the heavy cruiser's room. "Get your gear on and deploy immediately!"

Zara immediately tossed down the tablet she'd been playing with, her face all business. "What's going on?"

"The Abyssals deployed a Battleship demon and escorts into the Gulf," Masson answered as the two started heading towards the docks. "We need to smash it now before it shells a coastal town or heads for Taranto." The French admiral frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, where's Pola?"

"Don't worry," Zara airily replied. "This time of day, I doubt she's been through more than one glass of wine. Just call her up."

"Right," Masson sighed, shoving aside her uneasiness at Pola's... habits. Reaching down, she switched on the specialized radio used to communicate with shipgirls. "Pola, we need you to deploy as fast as possible. There's an Abyssal-"

 _"Don' wanna,"_ Pola whined. _"You can't give me orders, you're not my real mom!"  
_  
Admiral Masson frowned, and then glanced at Zara, who had a pained look on her face.

"Then again, sometimes she decides to get into the grappe instead..." the heavy cruiser groaned. "Though why she called you 'mom', I don't know."

~o~

"Nevada, what am I going to do with you?" Admiral Briggs sighed. "I like you, and goodness knows we need your firepower when we move on the Island Siege Empress, but you can't keep doing things like this!"

The battleship somehow managed to pout even more, despite the fact she was already pouting and was covered in an unidentifiable white substance. Otherwise, she said nothing.

Briggs sighed again. "What if I ordered you to stay in your room aside from official duties?"

That drew a heated glare from the battleship. "I don't need to take orders from you! I'm under Admiral Holloway; you're not my real Admiral, and never will be!"

"Noted, but please..." Briggs shuddered dramatically. "Don't _ever_ say something like that again."


	246. Rule 796

**Rule 796. Yes, battleship rig guns have large amounts of recoil. No, destroyers cannot use them to, quote, double-jump, unquote.**

"I've got an idea."

Hayashimo and Asashimo both sighed. Well, Asashimo more groaned, but the effect was the same.

"Does it involve battleships and battleship guns in any way?" Hayashimo intoned.

Kiyoshimo gaped at her sister. "H-How'd you know?!"

"Lucky guess."

"Alright, let's hear it," Asashimo said in a long-suffering tone.

"Okay, you know how battleship guns have a lot of recoil, right?" Kiyoshimo asked. Her sisters nodded. "Well, I was thinking that maybe we could use the recoil to double-jump!"

Silence greeted that proclamation, both of the other destroyers giving her flat looks.

"That," Asashimo started. "Is _not_ the stupidest idea you've ever had, but it's definitely in the top ten. How do we even carry those things so we can properly aim them?"

"Yeah, that was the sticking point, but I solved it!" Kiyoshimo eagerly replied. "I did a little digging, and there're some of those old 12.6" singles lying in storage! We can try it with one of those!"

Asashimo opened her mouth to object further - after all, the old Canet guns had proven too much for the petite Itsukushima class, who had still been twice their size - only for Hayashimo to interrupt her with one of her trademark giggles. "Heheheh, this should be fun."

The older destroyer closed her mouth as she considered this. Yes. Yes, it did seem like it would be fun.

"Sure, we'll help you out," Asashimo said, a confident grin spreading over her face. "And we'll even let you fire it first."

"Yes!"

~o~

Soon, the three destroyers were parked on one of the dock areas, their Canet guns held in hand in modified barbettes and loaded with training rounds.

"Alright!" Kiyoshimo announced. "I shall go first, to prove this works! Once I land, then you can try it!"

"Got it!" Asashimo confirmed, Hayashimo nodding along.

Grinning, Kiyoshimo jumped up, aimed the Canet gun down, and fired. The recoil drove the gun and its mounting up - and right into the middle of Kiyoshimo's face with a wet crunch.

"That looks like it hurt," Asashimo noted, wincing when the falling destroyer impacted the concrete, cracking it with her tailbone. "That looks like it hurt, too."

Hayashimo ambled up to her fallen sister, heavy gun forgotten. Squatting down, she checked the destroyer's eyes, nose, and lower back.

"Bruises, broken nose, and concussion," she reported. "Gun turret is fine."

"Oh, good, that's not as bad as I thought," Asashimo sighed in relief. "Alright, let's get her to the docks again, and then put these guns back before someone notices they're gone."


	247. Rule 807

**Rule 807. Whomever started the rumors about USS Medusa AR- 1 being the actual Medusa please give a formal apology to her as her work as a fleet repair ship is often stressful enough as it is.  
**  
"Hello, San Francisco! How can I-"

USS Medusa, AR-1, paused in confusion at the mirror the heavy cruiser was holding up in front of her face.

"Hey, doc," San Francisco replied. "I've got this issue in my propeller - I mean foot. I stubbed it on one of Alabama's boots yesterday and it still hurts."

"Right..." the repair ship replied, before shaking her head. "Alright, take off your shoe and sock and put your foot up on one of the stools."

As San Francisco complied, still holding up that damn mirror, Medusa simply became more and more confused and curious about the implement.

"Let me know when this hurts," Medusa stated as she began tweaking San Francisco's toes. "Anyway, what's with the mirror?"

"Oh," San Francisco stated. "There's this rumor going around that you can petrify people with your sta- MOTHERFUCKER!"

"Yup, that's definitely broken," Medusa stated as she released San Francisco's pinkie toe. "Let me get my repair tools and I can quickly replace the bone." She stood up and began rummaging around in a large toolchest, her back to the heavy cruiser. "And for the record, no, I don't have a petrifying stare. It's just that most destroyers are hyperactive little shits who can't sit still so I can repair them even though they're basically bleeding jelly."

"That's what I thought," San Francisco stated, putting down the mirror. "But, well, better safe than sorry."

"I see," Medusa said. Then she turned around.

San Francisco looked at the collection of tools in the repair ship's hands, and then on the Stepford smile on her face.

"Will it hurt less if I don't resist?" she whimpered.

"Probably."

"Good enough for me!"

~o~

"Oh, that rumor?" Minneapolis said. "I heard that from Columbia."

~o~

"Oh, right, the whole Medusa thing," Columbia said. "I'm pretty sure I heard that from Intrepid."

~o~

"Hmm... well, I'm not sure who started it, but I definitely heard it from Johnston."

~o~

"Nah, I didn't start that one. Wish I did, though, it's a good one," Johnston answered. "I do know who started it, though."

~o~

Proteus looked up from her rock garden to see Medusa looming over her, looking none too pleased. And, more importantly, Langley, looking equally annoyed.

"'Sup?" the collier asked, attempting to play it cool.

"Did you start the rumor about me petrifying people with my gaze?" Medusa bluntly asked.

"Oh, that?" Proteus replied. "Uh, yeah. From the looks of things, it didn't cause you that much trouble, which is a pity, because-"

The collier froze as the flaming point of an acetylene torch shoved its way under her chin.

"Fun fact about being so good at putting ships back together," Medusa stated, grinning. "It makes you very good at knowing how to _take them apart_."

Proteus glanced at Langley, and found no mercy in those eyes.


	248. Rule 811

**Rule 811: Under no circumstances are Maury or Shimakaze allowed to handle rocket engines.  
**  
"Ooyodo..." Admiral Goto said to his secretary ship. "Do you feel a pit of existential dread in your stomach?"

"I do, Admiral," the light cruiser replied. "I believe it is related to the very quiet day we've been having."

"Oh, good, then it's not just me." The Japanese admiral let out a weary sigh and leaned back in his chair, arms hanging at his sides. "What does it say about our existence that nothing happening just makes us wait for the other shoe to drop?"

"You're the one who volunteered for the military, Admiral," Oyoodo pointed out.

Goto frowned, and looked up to find the light cruiser wearing a small smile.

"Are you sassing me, Ooyodo?" he asked.

"Maybe," she grinned.

Goto let out a grunt and leaned back again. "Oh, I can't wait for this day to end. Nice warm bed, nice warm tea, nice warm girlfriend... maybe nothing will happen today. Maybe the shoe will drop on some other poor bastard."

"We can only hope, sir."

The two sat in companionable silence for several minutes before being interrupted by an odd sound. A sort of 'whoosh' accompanied by a high-pitched dopplering. And it was getting louder.

Goto didn't see anything, but he did see Ooyodo's eyes widen as something rattled his windows.

"I'm not even going to look up," Goto groaned. "What was it this time?"

"I-It was Shimakaze," the light cruiser managed to get out. "Strapped to some sort of rocket."

*CRUNCH!*

Ooyodo leaned over and glanced out one of the side windows. "And she just hit the old water tower."

*CHOW!*

"And the rocket just exploded."

*KA-BOOM!*

That blast rocked the building and cracked the windows. "It seems whoever made the rocket didn't secure the fuel properly," Ooyodo noted.

Goto sighed but didn't move.

"So, someone will come running in in three... two... one..."

"I'm okay!" Shimakaze announced, popping up in the window. "Destroyer Shimakaze, reporting for duty!"

"... Okay, that I didn't see coming," Goto admitted. "Now, where's the-"

"SHIMAKAZE!" Yahagi shouted, throwing the door open. "You are banned from going within a _mile_ of any rockets! And put some clothes on!"

The destroyer glanced down at her brief-as-usual outfit, which was charred almost completely off. "Worth it," she smirked.

Well, wasn't this all familiar. "Ooyodo, what do I have to-"

"Both of you fill this out and get back to me within twenty-four hours," Ooyodo interrupted him, handing two sheets of paper to the other shipgirls.

"... Still worth it," Shimakaze decided.

~o~

"Oh hell no," Maury muttered as she watched the video footage of Shimakaze riding underneath her rocket. "That little blonde bitch is not upstaging me again!"

Closing the laptop with the utmost care, she sprinted out of her room for the workshop Phoenix and South Dakota shared. Luckily, the light cruiser was already there.

"'Sup, Maury?" she asked, putting down the welding torch she'd been using on... something.

"I need a rocket," Maury stated. "As powerful as you can make it without making it bigger than a Tomahawk. Oh, and I need some way to ride it."

Phoenix blinked, then grinned. "I have just the thing!" Reaching under her workbench, she pulled out a can of some sort of chemical, more fire warning labels than bare metal showing. "Ta-da! A bit of chlorine trifluoride for the fuel mixture, and-"

"DENIED!" Admiral Holloway barked. Both shipgirls jumped in fright; he'd appeared from literally nowhere! The can wobbled dangerously, and was only prevented from tipping over by Holloway placing a steadying hand on it.

"Phoenix, we've been over this. No more experiments with high-fluorine compounds," he said, before turning to Maury. "And as for you, I've seen that footage, too. If you pull a stunt like that, you're going begging to Congress yourself for the repair funds."

Maury paled, and saluted. "Sir yes sir!"

"Good girl," Holloway replied, reaching down to fluff her hair.


	249. Rule 815

**By: Jacky2734**

 **Rule 815: We understand that the Japanese Ship Girl bases have gotten a... Reputation for corrupting all foreign personnel sent over on exchange programs, but the Admirals of other countries are not suppose to actively attempt to corrupt the Japanese personnel under their command as "Retaliation". Mutsu still hasn't gotten over what Nagato's stay at Pearl Harbor did to her sister.**

Mutsu was in a very good mood today. She knew that after six long months, Nagato and Tatsuta would be returning from their stationing at Pearl Harbor and she was so excited to catch up with her sister.

Of course, knowing her sister, she would want to dive straight back into the office work involved with being a Secretary Ship and not come back up for air until it was all caught up. With this in mind, Mutsu had spent the last few days cleaning up the office to Nagato's strict standards and catching up on the paperwork so that the two of them could relax and chat.

Finally finished with the task, Mutsu leaned back in her chair to relax for a bit until her sister arrived. Of course, that was the moment the Northern Ocean Princess, better known as Hoppo-chan, burst into the office, crying her eyes out.

Grunting heavily as the little Abyssal leapt onto her lap and buried her face in her chest, Mutsu moved quickly to comfort her. And not just because she could single-handedly level the entire base.

"Hoppou-chan, what's wrong?" Mutsu inquired.

"I-It's Mama," Hoppou sniffled. "She's b-b-been CURSED!"

Before she could question the little princess further, someone else walked into the room. Looking up, Mutsu saw it was a heavily tanned woman wearing a flower crown in her long, flowing hair, a simple yellow tube top, and a grass tiki skirt.

"Hoppou-chan, why'd you run away?" the woman asked the little Abyssal - who quickly hid under the desk - before noticing Mutsu. "Oh! Aloha, Mutsu-chan, I didn't see you at the dock when I arrived."

Shaking her head to get over the shock of seeing the sudden appearance of a hula dancer, of all things, Mutsu was quick to reply.

"Listen ma'am," she stated. "I don't know who you are or how you know my name, but this is a restricted area. You can't just come walking in here without permis-" Her chastisement of the stranger was interrupted by a sudden outburst of laughter.

"What's so funny?!" Mutsu snapped, angry at the lack of respect she was being shown.

Wiping a tear of laughter from her eye, the strange woman calmed down enough to talk. "What's the matter Mutsu-chan? Don't recognize your own sister?"

As the woman struck a pose, realization blossomed on Mutsu's face. Suddenly, what Hoppou-chan had said made sense.

"N-Nagato?!" Mutsu shouted, jabbing a disbelieving finger at her sister.

"Yep. Do you like my new look?" Nagato asked before giving her sister a wink.

 _'She winked. She never winks,'_ thought Mutsu before speaking out loud. "What happened to you?"

Nagato giggled. "Oh, the Admiral's secretary over at Pearl was so good, she didn't need my help at all, and without all that boooooring paperwork to do, I had TONS of free time between deployments."

Mutsu's eye twitched. ' _Boring?! Since when does she consider paperwork boring?'  
_  
"I was totally lost with what to do with myself," Nagato continued. "But then Tatsuta-chan convinced to go along with her and experience some of the local culture. I was hesitant at first, but with Tatsuta's encouragement, I quickly got over it and soon found myself in a routine. Surfing in the morning, training in the afternoon, dance lessons on Fridays, and luaus on Saturday. Oh, and don't even get me started on the food there, I found this one place whose Pineapple Smoked Pork was to die for..."

As Mutsu listened to Nagato talk about her time in Hawaii, she quietly contemplated what she would do to the person responsible for her sister's condition. ' _So, Tatsuta is the one who did this. I'm going to enjoy making that little sadist answer for what she's done... Good lord, has my sister always been this chatty?'  
_  
"...Anyway, Hawaii was a nice place and all, but it's good to be home," Nagato finished up. "Besides, I've got a lot of stuff that needs to get done."

Mutsu smiled. _At least some things never change._ "Well sis, I don't think you need to worry about work right now. I spent all day making sure everything was caught up so you could relax."

Nagato stared at her sister for a second before letting out a raspberry. "Work, schmork," she said. "I'm talking about setting up a luau here on base. Those things are just too FUN to give up cold turkey."

"What?" Mutsu yelped in total disbelief.

"Hmm, I still have to get the Admiral's approval," Nagato continued, ignoring her sisters growing disbelief. "And after that, I'll need to order the tiki torches and smoked pig. Hmm, what to do about entertainment... Oh! I know. We'll give the destroyers hula lessons. They'll look so KAWAII in those grass skirts. Oh, I have got to get on this immediately! I'll see you later, sis!" Nagato yelled as she rushed out of the room, leaving her sister to process the absolutely surreal experience.

Mutsu just sat there for a second, letting it all sink in, before she let it all out again.

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!" she screamed.


	250. Rule 821

**Rule 821. While we cannot deny the more mature shipgirls their enjoyment of calendars and photo albums featuring firefighting ships in drydock, please refrain from exposing the destroyers to such material or Tenryuu will be allowed to confiscate.  
**  
Ooyodo hummed a happy tune to herself as she strode down the corridors of Yokosuka. Inspections were always so fun, getting at the little details and really diving in. Amazing what most people overlooked.

It must be noted that the secretary ship was just about unique in this regard. There were shipgirls who could be detail-oriented, but they never enjoyed it. Ooyodo? She loved looking at and finding these little details. Hell, her favorite hobby was turning 5000-piece jigsaws upside down and rebuilding them from shape alone. It made her a right nightmare for shipgirls looking to hide something from inspections.

Anyway, as she continued her walk, she noticed a knot of shipgirls standing around a stand where Aoba was-

Ooyodo picked up the pace. They did _not_ need Aoba doing another swimsuit calendar. Or distributing lewd pictures. Or doujins. Unfortunately, there were battleships and carriers in the crowd, so she couldn't see over them, and they were tightly packed enough that she couldn't shove her way through. Pulling back, she pulled a kazoo out of her pocket, took a deep breath, and _blew_.

*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!*

"Gah!" Mutsu yelped. "Who did that?" she demanded, whirling around. "Oh, hey Ooyodo. What's up?"

"Don't 'what's up' me, Mutsu," the light cruiser stated coldly. "What's going on here?"

"Oh, Aoba's just distributing the firefighting ship calendars."

Ooyodo frowned. That didn't _seem_ too bad...

"Show me."

But with Aoba, best not to assume.

Shrugging, Mutsu reached into the satchel hanging over her shoulder and pulled out the calendar in question. Ooyodo took it and looked over the cover, one eyebrow steadily rising into her forehead. On the cover was the picture of a diminutive harbor firefighting ship - in drydock, her propellers and propeller shafts exposed.

"Well, whatever floats your hull," Ooyodo stated, handing the calendar back. "I don't see any reason to shut this down. In fact, is Akashi here?"

Mutsu glanced around, then stood on her toes. "Akashi! Ooyodo wants to speak to you!"

The repair ship threw a thumbs-up, and shouldered her way through the crowd to where Mutsu and Ooyodo were standing. "What is it?"

"You've had a body pillow-shaped package from 'NaughtyFiremenINC' sitting in the post office for the last four days," the secretary ship blandly informed her. "I recommend picking it up before it gets sent back."

"R-Right," Akashi mumbled, her face as red as the firefighting ships. Behind her, Mutsu, as well as an eavesdropping Maya and Chokai, giggled.

"Anyway," Ooyodo continued, turning back to Mutsu. "Like I said, the distribution is fine, but inform everyone here that they are _not_ to be displayed where destroyers can see them."

Mutsu's giggling stopped in favor of a very shifty look.

"About that..." she nervously chuckled, poking her fingers together.

~o~

"So, do you know why Inazuma has that calendar of firefighting ships?" Akatsuki asked her sister.

"Beats me," Ikazuchi replied. "And no, I don't know why she blushes every time she looks at it, either."

Indeed, the destroyer was staring intently at the January page, blushing furiously. At that moment, Hibiki returned, a plastic bag filled with ice cream in one hand. She glanced at the calendar, and then leaned in for a closer look.

"Good choice," she said. "Though I prefer July. Much nicer stern."

 _That_ got Inazuma to blush even more, to the continued confusion of Akatsuki and Ikazuchi.


	251. Rule 824

**By: Sheo Darren**

 **824: Nagato is no longer allowed to call parade formations just so she can show off cute pictures of the Northern Ocean Hime.**

~o~

 **Day Of Defeat**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_  
Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan

It was a superb sight that filled a patriotic heart with YAMATO DAMASHII and set the eardrums ringing with the booming beat of the Warship March. The combined fleet of the _kanmusu_ of Yokosuka (and one American ship-girl) sortied from the docks of the JMSDF Naval Base in parade formation at a leisurely speed.

"So what's with the surprise naval review?"

Enterprise wasn't part of the IJN roster, but she went along with the Japanese because her lovely wife was participating in the impromptu event.

"Unfortunately, Nagato-san didn't elaborate," replied Yamato while carefully cradling their daughter Enterprise II, a.k.a. Li'l E, whom the two protective parents didn't want out of their sight, not after what happened the last time they briefly took their eyes off their baby.

"Huh. That's not like Miss Hard-Ass."

"Well, we are coming up on her right now. I, Yamato, am sure that Nagato-san will explain her reasoning soon enough."

The brains of the operation held station at an open patch of water several kilometers from them. Standing beside Nagato and without a care in the world thanks to her newest toy – a Zuiun given to her by the floatplane enthusiast Hyuuga – was the Northern Ocean Princess.

Enterprise's crimson eyes flicked over to the Goodyear blimp lazily floating over the contrasting black- and white-topped crowns of the waiting Big Seven and the Abyssal Hime.

"I wonder what's with the blimp," she grunted.

~o~

 **Same Time**  
 _Rostock Naval Base_  
Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany _  
_

"I suddenly have the temptation to bomb Enterprise," muttered Graf Zeppelin to her sister Peter Strasser.

"What for?"

"I don't know."

"ZE!" offered her Stuka Ace.

"Shut up, Rudel," they snapped in unison at the saluting fairy.

"Ze."

x-x-x

 **Moving Forward**  
 _Yokosuka N.B._

"I would like to know as well," Yamato agreed as they and the rest of the kanmusu halted in front of the leader of the Yokosuka ship-girls.

"Everyone, I have a major intelligence update for you," Nagato stated to her subordinates and Enterprise.

"Well, don't keep us waiting," Enterprise muttered. "What've you got for us, Nagato?"

"This." And Nagato pressed the big red button of the remote control in her black-covered, open-fingered glove.

The broad side of the blimp turned out to be a flexible display screen developed & patented by Yuubari. It powered up to show a snapshot of Hoppou smiling happily at the camera after Graf Zeppelin gave her a BF-109.

The undercarriage of the airship then unfurled several two-story tall banners with more blow-up photos of Hoppou doing cute things: pouting as she booed "Go home!" at someone who had been teasing her (most probably Captain Darren, tormentor of cute things), nomming a baked Japanese yam, and looking intent as she enacted a dogfight between an old Mitsubishi 1MF biplane from Houshou and an equally ancient Boeing F3B biplane from Langley with appropriate sound effects.

~o~

824a: Likewise, she is no longer allowed to make two story tall blow ups of cute pictures of The Northern Ocean Hime.

~o~

At first everyone stared at the larger-than-life imagery decorating the blimp. Then they stared at their leader, who was in full beaming Nagamom Mode, a whole order of magnitude above mere Nagamon.

"Isn't Hoppou-chan so cute?" cooed Nagato.

"Huh. Heheheheheheheheheh. Heheheh. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

That, by the way, was the hull-shivering peals of deranged laughter issuing from Enterprise's ship-bells as she threw not just her cackling head but her entire torso backwards such that her body formed an unnatural ninety-degree arch over the water, proving that the American carrier was indeed distantly related to Houshou once her berserk button was mashed.

Almost all of the assembled _kanmusu_ scrambled away from the cackling American carrier as fast as their propeller screws could carry them.

"Ahhh… such a sexy yoga pose…" And Yamato pressed the trembling palm of her right hand into her warm cheek.

Towing an abruptly fainted Souryuu, Hiryuu launched a Tomonaga Squadron's worth of incredulity at the apparently aroused battleship.

"Yamato-san, that is neither 'sexy' nor is it 'yoga'," she ground out.

"It's all right, Hiryuu-san. I don't hold your taste in ship-girls against you. After all, I completely command Enterprise's love and attention."

"I am not! Where did that come from?"

Enterprise cut off her mind-breaking mirth with a hiss as cold and sharp as the katana that Yamato concealed inside her parasol. She hauled herself upright with such speed and force that she would have snapped the keel of a lesser ship-girl.

"No," growled the American while reaching over her shoulder for the deadly contents of the quiver strapped to the flight deck rigging on her back.

Now, Enterprise possessed a wide selection of aircraft to choose from. The slow but deadly Dauntless, the troublesome but tough son-of-a-bitch second-class Helldiver, the pregnant beast that was the Avenger, the whistling death called Corsair…

But when she did fire off the arrow that was VT-6, her fairies flew 'torpeckers', the malefic Douglas TBD-1 Devastators wearing the bright livery of the pre-war USN as seen in the 1941 movie Dive Bomber that starred her original body. Because she could.

"HEEEYYY~!"

And VT-6 got a measure of revenge on Imperial Japan by raking the photos of Hoppou with navy blue paint rounds.

"Nooo!" The absolutely aghast Nagato clutched the horn-like protuberances of her headgear as if she was in actual physical agony. "Enterprise! You **monster**!"

"̷̠̻̻̲͓B͇̟͈̣̖̙̕e͇̼͈͢f̯̗̣͚̼ͅò̘re̱͇̣͍̜͖̖ ̺̳̗I̷̱͓̰̦̬'̶̪̭͎̜ͅm͚͖̳̤̟̫͇ ͍͚͉̬̱̮̳t̟ͅh̲̭̳͡r̦͈͝o̮̤̞u̜g͎̯͉̟̫͓̤h wi͓̝̪̞t̛͖͕̞h̟ ̨͖̲͓ỳ͉̯̹̬̭̬̟ou,̘̮͕̼͙́"̫̞ promised Enterprise in a sepulchral tone, a further incentive for the fleeing Japanese _kanmusu_ to bravely run away even faster. "̭͇͎͕ͅT͚̼̻͢h҉͕̩̲̞e̵̦ ̢̫̳͚ͅna͉̬͝m̖͘é̤̥̥̦̼̼ͅ ̨'̡̦N͚a͉̮͍̖g̱̙͍̥̣͜ạ͓m̡̹̭͍o̸̮̮͚͈̭̺͔n̮͓̝̫̝̹ͅ'̭͔̱͞ w̦ͅḭ̶̠͎̰ĺ̤͇̩͈l̠͕̬̘̠̥͘ ̨̞̯̜͇ͅo̼̝n̞͓̪̬͙̲͠ḻ̝͠ỵ͓̞͇̯̲ ̸͎b̦̹͓̩e͏̝̦̬͚ ͢s̶̬͍p̼̗̟o̲̥͎k̟̀en͚̖ ̮̙̺̼i̫͕͝n̳͔ ̼̗̘̜̫H̝ẹ̶̮̬͖̳͖l̢l҉̥͚̝̩…̴̦̰̱̥̖̩"̤

"Don't underestimate the power of the Big Seven! All main cannons, full salvo! Fiiiiire!"

"So sexy," whined Yamato as her husband and Nagato began blasting at each other in earnest while Hoppou continued to play with her toy planes.

~o~

 _THE NAGAMOM MENACE_

~o~

[STINGER]

Kaga shook her head in disapproval of the boorish brawl. "Where is our pride in ourselves now?" she disapproved.

Her calm tone belied her current speed of 28 knots, such that her brown ponytail streamed behind her like a naval ensign. She might be extremely confident, but she wasn't suicidal.

"What do you think, Akagi?" she asked her similarly-sprinting partner, who was matching her speed with three and a half knots to spare.

"Fubuki-chan is cuter than Hoppou-chan," immediately replied the Red Castle before continuing to munch on a chunk of aluminum from an old destroyer, the better to keep her mind off the madness that was her malefic memories of Midway.

"…That wasn't what I was talking about…"

Behind Akagi, her plane guard ship nearly keeled over in heart-stopping joy.

"Akagi-sempai thinks I'm cute!" Fubuki began to hyperventilate. "Akagi-sempai thinks I'm cuter than Hoppou-chan!"

SEMPAI SHOCK!

 **AN: Begun, the Cute Wars have.**


	252. Rule 825

**Rule 825: The Joint Admiralty Board has stepped in and declared the "Cute War" over by officially declaring Akatsuki "Cutest in the Fleet".  
**  
"This Cute War has gotten entirely out of hand!" Admiral Collingwood declared, pounding his fist on the table. Admirals Hartmann, Briggs, Richardson, Holloway, Goto, and Cunningham all nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Oh, you're all overreacting," Admiral Masson, who, it must be reminded, was female and a good ten years younger than the rest of the admirals, stated dismissively.

As if on cue, a 33cm shell crashed through the window of the conference room that they were in, smashed the table to pieces, and buried itself in the floor right between the French admiral's chair legs. Toulon had been chosen for this meeting because it was, up until now, neutral ground. That neutrality now seemed to be gone. At least the shell hadn't exploded.

The Italian Admiral Colombo, who'd had to be very reluctantly dragged from Taranto and ongoing preparations, leaned down and hefted the massive shell. Wrapped around it was a sheet of paper emblazoned with the face of Le Fantasque and a French slogan saying "The true cutest of them all!"

Colombo's face was unreadable as he stood, walked up to the window, wound his arm back, and hurled the shell towards the ocean. About thirty seconds later there was an audible clang, followed by an explosion and a cry of "Mine leg!"

"Still think we're overreacting?" he spat.

"Withdrawn," Masson said, pale and shaking.

"Now that we're all on the same page, what are we going to do about this?" Briggs asked.

"Well, one thing's for sure: we're dealing with more than just motherly instincts now," Holloway pointed out. "At this point, the whole thing is as much a nationalist dick-waving contest as anything else. And we all know how hard those are to break up."

"Then there's only one thing to do," Hartmann gravely intoned, his hands tented in front of his face. "We must end this debate once and for all. Together, so that no one nation can claim victory."

"You think they'll really accept this?" Richardson pointed out. "Look at how invested they are! Even if we were the most objective and neutral source around, they'd still keep arguing until the sun engulfed the planet!"

"And do you have a better idea?" Colombo growled. "This is the only thing that could make this die down!"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then sit down and shut up!"

"You're out of line, Colombo!" Goto barked.

"Oh, shut it!" Colombo fired back. "We're all admirals here! And I don't see your ships in the Med getting ready to assault Malta! Speaking of which, I could use some help organizing that whole thing! I'm overworked, my staff's overworked, and that's not including the friction with those damn Americans!"

"You mean Nevada," Briggs muttered under his breath.

"I will give you one chance to take back the insult you have implied," Goto said softly. "For I know how stressed you are." His glare redoubled. "One. Chance."

Tension shimmered in the room, each Admiral instinctively beginning to sidle over to perceived allies as Goto and Colombo glared daggers at each other. Hands drifted over to weapons, and the shipgirls eavesdropping outside of the office began to feel faint.

"The sailors."

The tension deflated out of the room in favor of every admiral looking over to Admiral Cunningham, who'd been thus far silent.

"Send out an open-ended, anonymous poll to all our sailors on who's the cutest shipgirl," he elaborated. "If it's their beloved sailors, they won't argue."

"That... should work," Richardson decided. "But who's going to write and analyze it?"

"I'll handle it," Cunningham answered. "I've got the lightest workload of us all, after all."

"If we're decided?" Hartmann prompted, gaining nods all around. "Alright, motion carried. Let us know when the results have been analyzed, Cunningham."

~o~

"Thank you for coming, everyone," Goto said to his assembled shipgirls. "And thank you for declaring a temporary truce."

Nagato and Akagi stopped glaring daggers at each other just long enough to nod.

"Anyway, the Joint Admiralty had a meeting recently where we decided to weigh in on the ongoing Cute Wars." Goto held up a hand to forestall the outcry. "Or rather, we decided to ask the sailors of all our navies to weigh in."

The outcry died in its cradle.

"As for the results..."

Goto pressed a button on his remote, the projector throwing up a large bar graph. One of said bars was noticeably taller than all the rest.

"As you can see, the sailors have decided that Akatsuki is the cutest in the fleet."

 _'Three... two... one...'  
_  
"WHAT?!"

"Attagirl, Akatsuki!" Tenryuu crowed, slapping the destroyer on the back.

"Go, sis!" Inazuma and Ikazuchi cheered.

Hibiki merely saluted.

"B-B-B-But Admiral!" Nagato demanded, holding up Hoppo-chan by her armpits. "Look! Just... look!"

"No, no, Admiral, look at this!" Akagi cut in, moving in front of Nagato with Fubuki in her hands.

"Like I said, this was decided by the sailors themselves. Are you going to argue with the sailors?"

"No..." Akagi and Nagato mumbled.

"Alright, then that's settled. If I see any more fighting..."

Goto let the threat hang.

"Well. Pray you don't fight about this."


	253. Rule 826

**Rule 826: Using your ballistics computer to win competitions involving throwing is considered cheating.  
**  
Ryan Kelly did what bartenders did on a slow night: he wiped an already-clean glass with a rag while watching some of his few patrons. In particular, he was watching the two odd women who'd wandered into his bar arguing about something or other. He was pretty sure it was shooting-related, but he'd not been paying terribly close attention.

The shorter of the two would have looked adorable, with her orange hair done up in pigtails and freckles dotting her face and just how _short_ she was. Except she was stacked as hell and built like a fridge. A very attractive fridge, but a fridge nonethless.

The taller one had legs that went _all_ the way up, long blonde hair, and a pair of the largest breasts he'd ever seen, but she exuded danger from every pore. He wasn't sure if it was the ever-present scowl, the equally ever-present but faint scent of bunker oil, or the rippling muscles, or some combination. He just knew that he'd have to keep old Jim-Bob away from her lest she break him in retaliation for his usual antics.

"There's only one way to solve this!" the shorter woman suddenly declared, jabbing a finger at her taller companion. "Darts!"

"Darts, huh?" the taller one mused, the scowl falling away for a very wide grin. "You're fucking on, shortstack. Bartender! Two pitchers of the best piss ya got for me 'n my friend!"

Ryan shrugged and retrieved two plastic pitchers, filling them up with some of the Stella Artois a friend of his had bought last week. He needed to get rid of it somehow.

The taller one - still hadn't heard their names - grabbed the pitchers almost as soon as they hit the bar, and walked back over to where her friend was setting up the dartboard.

"So, who goes first?"

"Well, age before beauty, I say."

"You little fucking scamp. I oughta ram one my turrets up your ass for that."

"But you get to go first."

"But I get to fucking go first."

Ryan frowned. Turrets? What?

The blonde picked up a dart, closed one eye, and then lightly tossed it. Ryan's eyes widened slightly as the dart hit dead center of the board, quivering slightly.

"Not bad, not bad," the redhead nodded, picking up a dart of her own. "'Course, if this was easy, it wouldn't be any fun."

The dart flew, nailing the first dart right on the end and sticking. Ryan's eyes were as wide as saucers now.

"Well, fuck me, you've been practicing," the blonde whistled. She grinned, and picked up another dart. "That makes us even."

Soon, the two shipgirls - for that's what they had to be - were out of darts. Attached to the dartboard was a string of six darts stuck end to end, somehow not drooping. Even as Ryan examined it, he couldn't figure out _how.  
_  
"H-How..." he breathed.

"Fucking Sparkly Magical Shipgirl Bullshit," said Iowa.

"TM," West Virginia added.

"Shit, they actually fucking trademarked that?"

"Why do you think we've been going on the offensive more often? More revenue, more sorties."

~o~

Missouri leafed through several documents as she walked past the sports field. The trademarking of... that phrase had brought in some additional income, but they still needed more to fulfill the mission requirements they'd been set, especially with the new base going up in Bremerton. She sighed. Hopefully she wouldn't need to go to Congress, that was never-

*THWACK!*

A hand darted up to her temple, were something had hit and bounced off her armor. What was-

"Sorry, Missouri!" Houston called as she ran up to her. "I was playing frisbee with my sisters and, well, Chester might have thrown it a little hard."

Missouri glanced down at the frisbee at her feet, then at the field, which was conspicuously missing any Northampton-class heavy cruisers besides Houston.

"It's fine," she said, leaning down and picking up the frisbee. "Though I would recommend doing it normally instead of slinging it around the base as you seem to be doing."

"Yes, ma'am!" Houston barked, saluting.

Missouri nodded, and then continued on.

*CLANG!*

For about fifteen seconds before something else hit her conning tower armor and bounced off, though this time accompanied by a ringing headache.

"Shit, I'm so sorry!" Minneapolis shouted as she ran up.

Missouri glanced down at the hammer that had nailed her in the temple, then up at the heavy cruiser, who was wearing whole belt of the things. "Why... are you carrying a dozen hammers?"

"To practice my hammer throwing. Duh."

Missouri stared at Minneapolis from her squatting position, her face blank. "That answer clarified nothing."

"Oh. It's for my Lady Thor cosplay, of course. Comic-con's coming up, and I managed to get tickets!"

"Ah." The battleship straightened, the ringing in her ears subsiding. "Well, try to put less arm into it. You're lucky you hit a battleship instead of a destroyer or, God forbid, a normal human."

The heavy cruiser's paling face was quite gratifying. "Right... I think I'm gonna move to the airfield..."

As Minneapolis ran off, Missouri shook her head and continued.

"FORE!"

She looked up just in time to see the javelin arc towards her, and utter one word.

"Fuck."

~o~

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

"I told you, Atlanta, I'm not mad," Missouri assured the panic-stricken light cruiser as they waited outside of Vestal's office. She shifted slightly in her seat; the javelin in her shoulder was an annoyance, but her damcon fairies had already stopped the bleeding and pain, and rerouted some of her shoulder's internals so she could still move the arm.

"B-B-But I hit hit you in the shoulder! With a javelin!" Atlanta stammered, looking up at her with tearful eyes.

Missouri smiled indulgently. "Let me tell you about that time Kaga was training Zuikaku..."


	254. Rule 834

**Rule 834. Sneaking in to the admirals bed is now forbidden.  
**  
Admiral Goto sighed as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It seemed so much more lonely without Kongo in it, but the battleship had drawn convoy duty and would be gone for at least a week. He'd have to figure out some way to sleep without her.

He stayed like that for a few more minutes before sighing again and rolling over. It was no use. He just couldn't sleep. He sighed again, rolled over - and came face-to-face with Junyou's flushed, grinning, and thankfully sleeping face. He glanced down and immediately regretted it. Yes, there was a bottle there, nestled between her breasts. There was also nothing else.

"I swear to god, when I find out who introduced her to Pola..." he muttered. Sighing again, he reached out, very deliberately placed his hand on her shoulder, and shoved. The snoring carrier flopped off of the bed and onto the floor with a loud thud.

"I need better locks," he muttered, before rolling over and actually falling asleep this time.

~o~

Goto was shaken out of his sleep what felt like ten minutes later by a bony foot jabbing into his ribs. He groggily opened his eyes to see Kasumi sprawled out on his bed in her nightclothes, mouth wide open and limbs sprawled every which way.

"Oh for Pete's sake..." he groaned. Standing up, he eased his arms under Kasumi's armpits and lifted her up before stepping over Junyou's insensate form and parking the destroyer on the couch. A blanket completed the ensemble.

"What were you even doing there?" he wondered, before shrugging and going back to bed. Time for sleep.

~o~

For the second time that night, Admiral Goto was awoken by something poking into him. This time, though, it was on his back, and considerably softer.

"What the..." he mumbled, rubbing sleep in his eyes - and froze at the sight of Hiei lying next to him in a sheer black negligee, her eyes half-lidded.

"Hello, Admiral," she purred. "Now that Kongo is gone, why don't we have a little fun together? You know what they say about sisters..."

 _'Danger! Abort, abort!'  
_  
Hiei leaned in, her lips pressed for a kiss - and then yea, did a ghostly arm reach down to clonk her upside the head.

"Ow!" she yelped. "Aww, but sis!"

*CLONK!*

"Okay, okay, message received!" Sighing, Hiei stood and began strutting out of the room. "I'll see you tomorrow, Admiral."

Goto watched her leave, and then let his head hit the pillow. Had everyone taken crazy pills before bed or something? By now thoroughly exhausted, it didn't take long for the admiral to fall asleep again.

~o~

"Good morning, Admiral! How was your-"

Ooyodo trailed off as she got a good look at her Admiral. Simply put, he looked like shit, black bags under his eyes and his gait unsteady and wobbling. And that coffee... it'd give most people a caffeine high just from the fumes. That could _not_ be healthy.

"Mrphmbl..." came the mumbled reply.

"Okay, sir, I think you need to take the day off and get some more sleep."

The shambling zombie that was Goto nodded, and shuffled off. Ooyodo watched him go, and sighed, before letting a confident smile spread over her face. Okay. She could handle this, for one day at least.

"Admiral!" Kuma and Kitakami shouted as they slammed the door open. "Tama got into the catnip again!"

Or perhaps not.

~o~

Goto bellyflopped into his bed. Sleep. He needed sleep. His body complied, and he was out like a light within in minutes.

Several hours later, he was awakened by the sudden occupation of his bed. He cracked his eyes open to see three-quarters of Desdiv 6 in bed with him, staring up with shining, innocent eyes.

"A-Admiral?" Akatsuki said. "Can we sleep with you? Inazuma had a nightmare and we didn't want to disturb Tenryuu and-"

"Fine," Goto sighed. "Just don't wake me up, okay?"

Akatsuki, Inazuma, and Ikazuchi all nodded, before snuggling into his chest. In spite of himself and his lingering exhaustion, he had to admit: they did look adorable like this.


	255. Rule 836

**Rule 836. Renaming Father's Day to Admiral's Day is a sweet and appreciated gesture, just please make sure that younger/accident prone destroyers are supervised. We don't need a repeat of Sammy's and Willie's attempts.  
**  
"Happy Admiral's Day!" the entire Mahan class chorused.

"Aww, thank you," Admiral Holloway replied, ruffling Dunlap's hair. "No present?"

"We couldn't fit it in," Cummings replied. "It's outside!"

Admiral Holloway glanced out the window, and felt his jaw drop open at the brand-new Ferrari sitting on the tarmac with a big red bow wrapped around it.

"Uh, t-thank you, girls," he stammered, a boyish grin spreading over his face. "I'll be sure to use it. Now, don't you have torpedo maintenance to do?"

All eighteen destroyers stiffened before bolting out the door, leaving Holloway to chuckle.

"They're so cute when they're frantic," he sighed, glancing at the mountain of wrapping paper next to his desk. "And the gifts aren't bad, either."

Another knock sounded from the door, and he called out, "Come in!", smiling indulgently.

The door swung open with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary, admitting Samuel B. Roberts and William D. Porter - carrying Saratoga over their heads, dressed solely in the red ribbon she was tied up in and gagged with.

"Hey, Admiral!" Sammy B. announced. "We had a little trouble thinking of a gift to get you, but then we found out that Saratoga has a crush on you!"

"Mmmpph!" Saratoga tried to indignantly shout.

"And she was being all shy 'n stuff, and we thought the two of you'd be even cuter than Kongo and Goto, so we decided to speed up the process a bit," said Willy D.

"Mmrgh..." Sara mumbled through the gag, blushing.

Holloway, meanwhile, looking like he'd just had an axe buried between his shoulder blades, could only utter, "B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-"

"Great!" Sammy B. grinned. "We'll leave you two to get acquainted."

Destroyer and destroyer escort stepped forward - and then Willy D. tripped, pitching their cargo forward. With her limited horsepower, Samuel B. Roberts was unable to arrest the carrier's forward momentum, and she shot out of their hands - right into Admiral Holloway, who for his part was still too stunned to react. The collision knocked both of them back - right through the window behind him.

"Oh, crap..." Sammy B. groaned over the sound of shattering glass.

~o~

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Don't worry, Willy, I'm not mad," Holloway reassured her from his hospital bed.

The destroyer sniffed, and looked up, tears shining in her eyes. "Really?"

"Really," he said, smiling kindly. "It was an accident, and you meant well."

Willy D. sniffed again, and then stood up and wiped her eyes. "Thank you, Admiral," she said softly. "I-I thought I was getting better, but..."

"And who has the most carrier kills of any shipgirl in the world?" Holloway retorted, patting her head with has cast-encased right hand. "You're doing fine, Willy. If you can't believe in yourself, then believe in me who believes in you."

The destroyer chuckled weakly. "You stole that from Gurren Lagann."

"Does it make it any less valid?"

The two had a good laugh at that before falling into a companionable silence. One that was broken by Saratoga poking her head in, Sammy B. just below her.

"Um, Admiral..." she said, shifting nervously. "C-Can I come in?"

"Of course, Sara," Holloway replied, waving her over.

"R-Right," she gulped. "I-I, uh... I... GAH!"

The carrier glared down at Sammy B., who merely rolled her eyes, pulled back her elbow, and made a 'get on with it' gesture. Saratoga gulped again, before starting over. "Admiral, I love you. Would you-"

"Sara, I'm sorry, but let me stop you right there. I'm married," Holloway said.

Saratoga froze, almost looking petrified, while Sammy B. gaped openly. "Wait, what?!"

Holloway frowned. "I did tell you all this, didn't I?"

"Uh, no, you didn't," Willy D. deadpanned.

"Oh." Holloway grimaced. "I suppose I should tell everyone."

 _"Yes,"_ both escorts chorused.

"B-But your hand! You don't have a wedding ring!" Saratoga desperately pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, I haven't worn my ring in years," Holloway stated. "The damn thing was an heirloom, and it never quite fit. After the third time almost losing it, my wife and I agreed that I should just leave it in a safe place rather than on my finger."


	256. Rule 838

**Rule 838: Don't attempt to chase down Shimakaze and force her into "something decent." Especially if you're a 21-knot Standard.  
**  
"Uh, Maryland? You okay?" West Virginia asked.

The two battleships, joined by their sister Colorado, had been simply walking down one of the corridors of the newly remodeled naval base in Bremerton, trying to familiarize themselves, when Maryland had come to a halt, staring down the corridor at something.

Colorado leaned in front of her sister, lined up two fingers with her gaze, and then traced it down the hall to where Shimakaze was talking to an American destroyer. One of the Sumners, by the look of her rigging.

"I think it's Shimakaze," Colorado concluded.

"Tell me she's not doing what I think she's doing..." West Virginia groaned, hand coming up to meet her face.

Suddenly, Maryland twitched, pulled out a very nice, short-sleeved, knee-length blue dress out of... somewhere, and began charging at the blonde destroyer.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" she shouted, tears streaming from her eyes. "YOU MUST WEAR SOMETHING DECENT, MY DEAR!"

Shimakaze, for her part, took one look at the battleship charging for her and bolted the other way as fast as her turbines could push her. And unfortunately for Maryland, that was a good eighteen knots higher than her own top speed.

"Should we do something?" Colorado wondered as she and West Virginia watched the two vanish into the base.

"Nah, no way Maryland's catching that girl," the other battleship decided. "She'll get bored with the chase eventually, and then everything will go back to normal."

The start of Yakety Sax started up behind them, and both battleships turned around and glared at the one responsible. Mississippi wilted slightly and hastily paused the song. "Sorry."

~o~

"'She'll get bored with the chase', huh?" Colorado drawled.

"I didn't expect her to rope in the carriers, dammit!" West Virginia snapped.

Indeed, Shimakaze was now being constantly orbited by carrier aircraft, a mix of Avengers, Skyraiders, and Corsairs. Granted, they hadn't actually cornered her yet - the 33-knot Essexes like Leyte, Kearsarge, and Iwo Jima were still quite a bit slower than the 39-knot Shimakaze - but they were following her every move, and sooner or later they'd position themselves properly.

Probably later.

"Also, what the hell kind of pursuit tactics are these?!" West Virginia shouted as once again Shimakaze slipped through a hole in their net, a shit-eating grin on her face. "Use the terrain, you nitwits!"

"Shimakaze's enjoying this," Colorado observed. "Man, Oriskany's going to be pissed when she finds out about this."

"Find out about what?"

The two battleships glanced behind them to find the carrier in question standing over them, looking confused. Wordlessly, they just pointed at the screen running a feed from a camera-equipped Hellcat one of the carriers had sent aloft at some point.

Oriskany's eyes narrowed and her expression darkened as she took in the three carriers she was in charge of. All three were recent summons with little wartime experience under their belts. Oriskany was not only more experienced as a shipgirl, but she'd been an active carrier into the 1980s. Thus, she'd been put in charge of the three greenhorns now that Bremerton was up and running and needed a carrier task force on hand as a hammer.

And now she was getting firsthand evidence of their inexperience.

"Those idiots!" she snarled. "They're gonna wish I'd killed them by the time I'm done!" And with that, she stalked off, presumably to go end the chase.

"Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted," West Virginia sighed.


	257. Rule 841

**Rule 841. We don't care how fluent you are, reports are to be filed in the language of the country they're in.  
**  
Admiral Goto sifted through the mission reports the visiting Americans had sent in. Most were fairly professional, though Heermann tended to send hers in crayon. But, as always, there were some who made themselves into problems. Massachusetts, of all people, just sent in a sheet with "Mission complete" tersely written in the center; luckily, Washington's writing made up for that. Johnston's was so full of arrogant boasting, exaggeration, and outright fabrication that it was only useful as firestarter. New Orleans somehow managed to transcribe her Cajun drawl into her Japanese. And then, of course, there was Hornet.

He glanced at the report she'd sent in again, written entirely with English, his order to her to write in Japanese circled and an arrow leading to it from a note saying "I DON'T READ MOON RUNE!" He'd have felt offended if it wasn't so... childish.

Still, he needed the reports in Japanese, to mollify the Diet if nothing else, so it was time to bring out the big guns.

"Alright, Kongo," he said, sliding the mission report back to the battleship. "I have a mission for you: get Hornet's Japanese skills up to the point she can actually write her mission reports in Japanese."

"COUNT ON ME, desu!" she chirped, throwing a thumbs up. "I'll have her speaking proper Japanese in no time!"

 **Three hours later:  
**  
"IT'S LIKE TRYING TO TEACH A MENTALLY RETARDED BABY SQUIRREL!" Kongo wailed, the towering stack of sake bottles next to her a testament to the battleship's pain. She turned to her companion at Hosho's. "How do you do it, Ellen-san?"

"This does sound like a tough one," Ellen Baker, English teacher extraordinaire, mused. "Perhaps you simply need to present it in such a way that she's interested in what she's reading. My students love baseball, for instance, so I try to slip baseball in as many exercises as possible."

"I-I'll try," Kongo sniffed, before grabbing onto the blonde and wailing. "THANK YOU, ELLEN-SAN!"

"Oh dear..." Ellen chuckled.

~o~

"AVEROFF!"

The Greek armored cruiser looked askance at the heavy door the Yavuz Sultan Selim had just kicked down. "Jesus Christ, what's got your panties in a twist this time?"

"Oh?" the battlecruiser replied, her cheek twitching. "Perhaps you'll remember writing _this!_ "

And with that, the German expat shoved a sheaf of papers into Averoff's face. The armored cruiser gently grabbed the stack, and briefly scanned them before giving Yavuz a flat stare. "This is a mission report."

 _"Read the text!"  
_  
"Alright, alright, sheesh..." Averoff muttered, looking through it again. "Well, I don't see the problem."

The twitch intensified. "I'm sorry, but you don't see any problem with just writing 'bar bar bar' repeated endlessly instead of actual words?"

The armored cruiser shrugged. "Well, you ordered me to write in Turkish," Averoff replied. "And, well, that's what Turkish sounds like to me."

Glaring, Yavuz grabbed the stack of papers and slapped the edges against Averoff's exposed hand.

"Ow!" she yelped, looking down at the thin line oozing blood. "Did you just give me a paper cut?"

*SWISH!*

"Ow! Dammit, stop!"

"Write in Turkish properly, and it stops."

"Fuck you, you Mongoloid-"

*SWISH!*

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

*SWISH*

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I'LL WRITE IN FUCKING TURKISH, JUST KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE PAPER CUTS!"

~o~

"Dunkerque..." Admiral Cunningham groaned. "Far be it from me to stop you from sending reports to the French Navy in French, but while you're here, I expect reports in _English_."

"You let Revenge write zem in zat ridiculous, ah, how you say... 'ga-to speak'? French eez far more refined zan zat... atrocity," the French battleship replied.

"One, I've tried to stop her from doing that many, many times," Cunningham pointed out. "Second, _it's still English_. And by now, it's English I can actually _parse_."

"Zis eez because I'm French, eezn't it?" Dunkerque accused.

"I have Bismarck, Kirov, and every other foreign visitor do the same," Cunningham shot back. "Try again."

Dunkerque visibly warred with herself, before sighing and holding her head in her hands. "Alright, fine," she grumbled in a normal British accent. "We'll do it your way."

"Y-You speak English?" Cunningham asked, gape-mouthed, before realizing the stupidity of the question. "I mean, English that _doesn't_ sound offensively French?"

"Yes," Dunkerque ground out, before reaching out and pulling Cunningham close by his tie. "And if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone else, I will find you, I will tear out your intestines,wrap Christmas lights around them, _and use them for decoration_. Are we clear?"

"Crystal!" Cunningham croaked.

Dunkerque beamed and released him. "Good, good!" she chirped, outrageous French accent back.

~o~

"Is-Is that _Klingon_?" Phoenix wondered as she stared at the research notes South Dakota had sitting on her workbench.

"Yup," the battleship absently replied.

Phoenix looked over the papers again, and her eyes widened at the fact that they were assigned to the Admiral. "Wait, you send papers to the Admiral written in Klingon?" she wondered. "And he hasn't tried to shut it down for being a colossal pain in the ass?"

"Phoenix..." South Dakota sighed, putting her tools down and turning around. "If the Abyssals get their hands on _any_ of the stuff in Klingon, the war's over. Period. So, I put them in the best cypher I can think of."

"Oh, come on," Phoenix groaned. "Writing them in _Klingon_ isn't going to stop Abyssal codebreakers!"

~o~

"... What the hell is this?" the Director demanded, shaking the intelligence she'd just received to punctuate the point.

"Well, it's _supposed_ to be South Dakota's latest research," the Director's secretary, a carbon-copy of Hoppo-chan, grumped. "But it's in some sort of cipher we can't make muzzle or breech of. We hoped you might know something about it."

The redhead simply groaned and carelessly tossed the papers over her shoulder, where they were quickly ruined by the seawater that collected everywhere. "Bah, don't bother," she replied. "It's in Klingon. There are, like, a hundred people fluent, and I doubt any of the Echoes would be able to learn it without defecting. We'll just have to do without."


	258. Rule 844

**Rule 844. To the person who put "Battle 360" on all the televisions in Yokosuka, Zuikaku and Enterprise would like a word with you.  
**  
"Wait, seriously?!" Zuikaku incredulously demanded. "More AA than Desdiv 6, Tenryuu, me, _and_ Yamato combined?"

"Zuikaku, I'm going to be blunt," Enterprise stated. "The Type 96 is shit, your AA fire control is shit, and... okay, your 5" guns aren't shit, but with that fire control and no VT-fused shells, they're not much help."

"And that's why you're sending us all those Bofors!" the Japanese carrier realized.

"Yeah, fun fact: apparently you guys reverse-engineered a few Bofors you captured in Singapore," Enterprise replied. "Which means, thankfully, that we didn't need to train your fairies to maintain them, and it didn't take much for them to learn to build them. All of those quad mounts you have? Made in Japan."

Zuikaku looked over her AA guns with a new appreciation. "So that's why my gunners have been splashing more planes..."

"Yup! And once we show your fairies VT fuzes-"

Zuikaku frowned as Enterprise cut herself off. "E? What are you-"

"I hear something... familiar," Enterprise said, suddenly changing direction to one of the nearby lounges. "I really hope I'm wrong, but..."

The two made their way in silence to the lounge, Zuikaku steadily picking up more sound herself. It sounded like some sort of documentary, albeit one with a lot of machine-gun fire. Soon, Enterprise was swinging the door open - and lo and behold, there were the remaining five carriers of the First Air Fleet huddled up in a cuddleball under a blanket, trembling and clutching each other. And there on the screen was-

"MOTHERFUCKER!" Enterprise and Zuikaku screeched simultaneously as the Battle 360 episode continued onward, Enterprise's SBDs diving down on an unsuspecting First Air Fleet.

"T-They'd never put this on themselves!" Zuikaku immediately pointed out. "Someone must have left this running!"

"And if they can do that with one TV..."

The two carriers came to the realization at the same time, and gave each other panicked glances.

"I'll go north, you go south!" Zuikaku barked.

"Got it!"

~o~

 _"Enterprise? It's Zuikaku. All the TVs in the north end of the base are playing it. I've got a dozen traumatized destroyers to hand off. You?"  
_  
"Yeah, they're all on," Enterprise reported. "I don't have any traumatized destroyers with me, though. Damn Gray Ghost stories..."

 _"Oh..."_ came the reply. _"Well, I've been turning them off as we go. Give me five more minutes, and then we can link up and punish the jackass who did this."  
_  
Enterprise grinned, a grin not seen since the dark days of 1942. "Sounds like a plan."

 _"You're doing the thing again, aren't you."  
_  
The grin evaporated, replaced with an embarrassed flush. "I-I don't know what you're talking about."

Zuikaku's smirk was practically audible. _"You're doing the Grey Ghost thing again. Y'know, for someone who doesn't like those stories, you sure try to imitate them a lot."  
_  
"SHUT UP!"

 _"Make me."  
_  
"GAH!"


	259. Rule 847

**Rule 847. As happy as we are that you girls are eating your vegetables, please stop stealing the cans of spinach.  
**  
"Girls," Samuel B. Roberts gravely intoned. "We have our instruments. We have our subjects. The experiment is ready. For science."

"For science," Johnston and Heermann agreed.

The destroyer escort leaned over, and picked up the first object: an ordinary sandwich.

"This is the Sandwich," she said. "Oat bread, lettuce, ham, and swiss cheese, with an olive-topped toothpick. Johnston, could you do the honors?"

"Gladly," the destroyer replied, picking up the sandwich and taking a massive bite out of it. Barely stopping to chew, she bit off another chunk, and then another, and swallowed, the sandwich gone. For a moment, all three sat and waited, before sighing as one.

"Well, that was a bust," Sammy B. decided, reaching down and pulling up the next object. "Spinach, canned." She gripped the lid and tore it off. "Heermann, if you please?"

"Sure!" Heermann positively chirped, grabbing the open can and eagerly chowing down.

"Ain't natural," Johnston grumbled.

"Some of us drink hot bunker oil," Sammy B. pointed out. "Spinach is kind of tame compared to that."

"Still not natural..."

Heermann finished off the spinach, carelessly tossing the can over her shoulder. Nothing happened.

"I see we'll have to break out the big guns," Samuel B. Roberts smirked. Reaching down, she pulled up the last item. "The spinach sandwich."

Johnston's and Heerman's eyes widened at the sight. "No, you fool!" Johnston shouted. "No human, shipgirl or not, can take that kind of power!"

"I can!" Samuel B. Roberts announced, and before her friends could stop her, she bit down on the sandwich.

Once again, nothing happened.

"Oh, come on!" the destroyer escort shouted. "Nothing?! Seriously?!"

"The sandwich I might understand, but the spinach, too?" Heermann wondered, picking up the can and examining it. "Maybe we got a defective product?"

"Or maybe life doesn't work like video games and cartoons," Johnston mused.

The three shipgirls mulled that over before bursting into laughter.

"Ha! Definitely not!"

Finally, as the laughter died down, Heermann put forth another theory.

"Maybe we're already so badass that the boost gets drowned out in comparison?"

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Sammy B. announced. "More subjects!"

~o~

"I've got a dozen destroyers getting their stomachs pumped or being treated for anaphylactic shock, the EPA on my case about all the spinach cans, and the mess complaining about the lack of spinach," Admiral Holloway summarized. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Heermann, Johnston, and Samuel B. Roberts, all bandaged up from an ill-fated attempt to feed spinach to San Diego, having mistaken her for a destroyer, simply smiled like the little angels they thought they were.

"I say we attack the fort at dawn!" Sammy B. announced, only to suddenly freeze. "Shoot, wrong phrase!"

"Uh, for science?" Heermann offered.

"I'm surrounded by idiots," Johnston groaned, cradling her head in her hands.

"Well, look on the bright side," Wright stated as Holloway mirrored Johnston's actions. "At least they're making sure everyone gets their vegetables."


	260. Rule 853

**Rule 853. All shipgirls are to avoid the little Abyssal girl on Nii'hau. Let the locals do their work.  
**  
 _She'd been new. Just created to replace her predecessor, who had committed the cardinal sin of defecting to The Enemy. 'The line is defective,' she heard the others whisper when they thought she couldn't hear them. It wasn't fair! The other lines had had defectors, and yet hers was the only one to be singled out! So she kept her head down, did what she was told, and trained. And trained. And_ trained. _She would show them all what her line was capable of._

Finally, after many months, she got her chance. The defection of her predecessor had opened up the Northern passage, and attempts to interdict it had only resulted in more losses. She was to close it again.

So she left her warm home, and steamed north. Her comrades out to sea didn't share the prejudices of those at headquarters. They were excited; finally they were to strike a blow against The Enemy! As she slowly crawled north, she gained increasing numbers of hangers-on, until a rag-tag but large fleet was following her. This was good; she would need them to be her long arms against The Enemy.

It was not to be.

The Enemy found them while still at sea. Shells, bombs, torpedoes, and missiles annihilated her escorts, and shattered her own armaments. Her one consolation was that she inflicted enough damage to slip away. And a sorry consolation it was. She could feel it: she was sinking. Slowly, but she was sinking. And her motive power was almost gone. Worse, though, was the knowledge that she'd failed. _No more of her line would be made, she was sure. They were failures, all of them._

Broken, sinking, and unable to care, she drifted with the winds and the currents, slowly slipping into the water. She didn't know how long she was at sea. The last thing she remembered was an island in the distance.

~o~

The Northern Ocean Princess blinked. She was... not on the ocean. She was on land, on a straw pallet, covered in a thin blanket with a roof over her head. This confused her.

The room was fairly spartan, bare wooden walls over a dirt floor liberally dusted with straw. There was one door, and one window, both covered with red cloth. She sat up, glancing around. How was she alive? She'd been sinking the last she remembered.

The cloth over the door rustled, admitting a figure that the Northern Ocean Princess recognized as one of The Enemy's organic subsystems. Frightfully inefficient, but they made it work. She shot out her hand, ready to obliterate it, but nothing happened. With a start, she realized that her armaments were gone. If the consternation showed on her face, the subsystem didn't notice, and merely smiled kindly, holding out a tray covered in-

As she took in the steaming heap of mutton on the platter, the Northern Ocean Princess became acutely aware of how low her fuel reserves were. Taking the tray, she immediately tore into the meat, sighing as her fuel reserves began to rise from critical to merely low.

All too soon, the meat was gone, and she held out the tray. The subsystem took it, still smiling, and left the dwelling. Well, now she knew why The Enemy kept them around. They were handy little things.

~o~

The man who'd delivered the meat made it five feet out of the room before his fear overcame and he slumped to his knees, shaking.

"That was scary..." he breathed. He took a few minutes to compose himself, and then headed out of his home again. Better get more mutton; an appeased Abyssal was one not obliterating them with her bare hands.

~o~

"You're joking," Admiral Holloway said.

 _"I'm afraid not, Admiral,"_ said Bruce Robinson, owner of Ni'ihau since his brother Keith had died. _"That Northern Ocean Princess your forces smashed a few weeks ago is on my island."  
_  
"Dammit..." Holloway muttered. "And I don't have the shipgirls on hand to tackle an Installation-type Abyssal on such short notice..."

 _"You misunderstand, Admiral,"_ Robinson interjected. _"I don't want you to kill her. I just need your shipgirls to steer clear of the island."  
_  
"I can arrange that. Ni'ihau is pretty deep in enemy territory as it is." Holloway frowned at the businessman. "But why? Why do you not want it dead?"

 _"Her,"_ Bruce Robinson corrected. _"And it's because if I know the residents of that island, they're already converting her to our side."_

~o~

 **Several Weeks Later  
Yokosuka  
**  
"Hoppo-chan, visitor for you!" Mutsu called.

The Abyssal Princess in question grinned under her scarf and ran for the door.

[Hi!] she called out, before her eyes widened at who was at the door.

It was... well, her. Or, at least, what had been her. The girl in front of her wore human clothes - flip flops, a denim miniskirt, a white cami, and a scarf - as well as a brilliant shell lei, and sported a golden tan and a wide grin on her face.

[Sister!] the doppelganger cried out, dashing forward and tackling Hoppo-chan to the ground. [It's so good to meet you! Call me Nii-chan, okay?]

[I have a sister...] Hoppo-chan muttered, before grinning herself, grabbing Nii-chan, and spinning her through the air. [I have a sister!]

Mutsu giggled at the scene before her. If only Nagato were here to see this, but she was still stateside. Ah well. Give it a few more days.


	261. Rule 855

**Rule 855. All ship girls are hereby forbidden from putting cannabis oil in their fuel.  
**  
West Virginia grinned. This was the life. Steaming on the open seas, leading all ten Standards in a battle line with no Nevada to fuck things up or Oklahoma to slow them down, ready to fuck up anything the Abyssals could conceivably-

"Ackpfft!"

Muttering a variety of curses under her breath, the battleship wiped her sea-soaked bangs out of her eyes. On the debit side, the North Pacific off the coast of British Columbia was a hell of a lot more rough than the balmy seas near San Diego. Whatever. It was an annoyance, nothing more.

Snorting out some remaining seawater from her nose, a familiar smell caught her attention. Musky, and not particularly pleasant, and very familiar. She whirled around to the next ship in line, Colorado.

"What are you doing?!" she demanded as she steamed backwards.

"Huh?" Colorado dully replied, following her sister's gaze to her smokestacks. "Oh, this? I mixed some cannabis oil into my fuel mixture. It's niiiiiiiice. Want some?"

"Leaving aside that you're currently high as balls on a _sortie_ ," West Virginia spat. "Look behind you!"

Colorado did so to find the entire rest of the battle line almost as stoned as her on the fumes.

"Oh... Thas bad..."

"Goddammit..." West Virginia groaned. "It would be just _perfect_ if a bunch of Abyssals-"

The battleship hastily clamped her hands on her mouth. After all, the universe is always listening, and can never resist a straight line like that.

So, naturally, that was when several shells came screaming in, throwing up massive gouts of water.

"We'll deal with this later," West Virginia growled to her older sister before whirling around to face the enemy.

~o~

"How are you doing?"

West Virginia groaned, fingering the bandage wrapped around her head. "I've been better... Good thing California knows the Drunken Fist, or I might be dead."

"Yes, I've talked to Colorado about that," Admiral Richardson stated. "She's going to be restricted to the base for the foreseeable future, and the only reason I'm not doing more is because she fast-talked a good idea to me."

The battleship gave Richardson a sidelong glance. "And that was...?"

~o~

[Hey, man, could I get some Doritos?] a Wo-class carrier slurred as she played a video game in one of the newly constructed high-security Abyssal holding facilities. ['Cause I could really go for some Doritos right now. They're delicious.]

 _"We'll look into getting you some Doritos, Wo,"_ came the reply from one of the wardens.

[Cool... Oh, whoa, Kirby just turned into a tiny little tank made of yarn! Oh, that's so adorable!]


	262. Rule 859

**Rule 859. Joking about** ** _Sullivans_** **' "Juneau-sized sister complex" is a good way of receiving torpedoes to the face.  
**  
"So..." Atlanta stated, sipping her drink. "About The Sullivans."

"Not again..." San Diego, San Juan, Flint, Tucson, Oakland, and Reno all groaned as one.

"What?" Atlanta demanded. "It's an honest question! It's a weird name, and I was sunk before she was commissioned, so I don't know the significance!"

"Sorry, sorry," San Diego quickly replied. "It's just... well, there have been issues between her, Juneau, and other shipgirls."

"Juneau?" Atlanta frowned at the mention of her last sister, who was currently bringing Juneau II, Spokane, and Fresno up to speed. "What does she have to do with The Sullivans?"

San Juan gave her a flat stare. "You seriously don't remember? The name seriously doesn't ring any bells?"

"Well, there were those five brothers, and-" She blinked at the stares her sisters were giving her. "But that still makes no sense! I mean, to be named 'The Sullivans' all five needed to have died on her and-" She was interrupted by a grim nod from Reno. Gaping openly, she summed up the situation in the only way she could. "Fuck."

"You see why she's sensitive about her name?" Oakland asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Atlanta sighed. "And lemme guess, people joke about her 'Juneau-sized sister complex', right?"

Almost instantly, San Diego and San Juan practically leapt over the table to clamp their hands over Atlanta's mouth. They held that position for a few minutes, looking frantically around the whole while, before sighing in relief and sitting back down.

"Don't _say_ that!" San Diego hissed. "She's really, really good at hearing that insult."

"Right, got it, no speaky of sister complex," Atlanta nodded. "So, what does she do if she does hear that?"

"Hey, poi! Aren't you that destroyer with a Juneau-sized sister complex, poi?"

All the Atlanta-class cruisers turned to Yuudachi, who seemed to be talking to The Sullivans, if the torpedo the latter had pulled out was any indication. In one fluid motion, the destroyer swung the torpedo into the Japanese destroyer's face, smashing her into a wall and breaking both the torpedo and her nose in the process.

"Sink again, you shitty destroyer!" The Sullivans snapped, before stomping off.

Atlanta turned back to her sisters, a smug grin on her face. "I'm okay with this."

~o~

"So, uh, big sis?" Juneau II asked.

"Yes dear?" the older light cruiser asked sweetly.

"What's your relationship with The Sullivans?"

Without any warning, the older Juneau clamped onto the younger's cheeks, staring her dead in the eyes.

"What did you say about a Juneau-sized sister complex?" she growled, one hand inching for a torpedo.

"I didn't say that!" Juneau II cried out. "Please, I'm sorry if I said something wrong, just let go!"

Behind her, Spokane and Fresno watched in stunned amazement.

"Okay, I'm definitely getting stoned tonight," Spokane stated. "Hopefully Oregon City or Washington has some weed I can nab."

"Mind if I join you?" Fresno asked.

"Bring some of those chocolate chip cookies you make, and you've got a deal."


	263. Rule 863

**Rule 863. The Christmas holidays are almost upon us so the Admirals would like to remind all shipgirls that Santa Claus indeed real and to ignore Kitakami. She's still bitter over the lumps of coal in her stocking from last year.  
**  
Kitakami was in a rather less grumpy mood than usual. After all, she had an Ooi-free month to look forward to, courtesy of the body pillow with her anime-style likeness printed on it that she'd ordered for her sister's Christmas present. Hopefully it would hold her until Valentine's day.

The reason she wasn't outright _happy_ was because it was freaking Christmas. Stupid over-commercialized Western import... and the coal she'd gotten in her stocking last year (plus a sleeping Tama - no wonder the girl insisted on traditional Christmas stockings) did not help her mood.

And then there was Santa. Of all the symbols of Christmas, it was the one Kitakami detested the most. Every time she saw a destroyer running by in a little Santa hat, she wanted to grab one of them and shout "Santa isn't real, you stupid rugrats!". Someone had to teach those brats maturity, after all. It certainly wasn't because constant exposure to Ooi had left her bitter and cynical, and that the coal from last year had snuffed out the last embers of her childish innocence. Nope. She was doing everyone a _service_.

"Hey, Kitakami!"

The light cruiser turned around to see the four destroyers of Desdiv 6, plus Hoppo-chan, standing in front of her in full-body Santa outfits. Kitakami felt a pang of disgust curl up in her stomach like some disgusting worm; Akatsuki and the rest she could understand, but Hibiki should know better, dammit!

"What?" she grunted, hoping they'd go away.

"Merry Christmas!" they all chorused. "I hope Santa brings you nice gifts!"

"Yeah, well, that'd be nice. If he was real. Which he isn't."

"What?" Akatsuki tilted her head to the side, looking adorably confused (but I repeat myself). "I thought you said something about Santa not being real... but that can't be right!"

Kitakami grinned. Oh, this was perfect! "Nope, he's not real!" she said, sounding more cheerful than she had in months. "Just another thing made up by the corporations to sell more shit."

She took quite a bit of smug satisfaction at the sudden tears in the eyes of four of the little brats, though Hibiki was still annoyingly stoic.

"Santa's real," the white-haired destroyer intoned. "The Soviets tracked him back in the 1980s on radar. Same with NORAD." Hibiki pinned Kitakami with a piercing glare. "Are you saying NORAD is wrong?"

All of a sudden, the tears and the smug satisfaction were gone as the four other girls shot Hibiki pleading looks.

"R-Really, nanodesu?" Inazuma breathed.

"Yup. Totally real."

"He's not real!" Kitakami suddenly shouted. "Don't believe those corporate lies!"

"Oh, Kitakami," Ikazuchi sighed, a smug grin of her own on her face. "I know your childhood innocence enacted a suicide pact with your basic decency, but really, denial isn't healthy."

"GAH!"

~o~

"Alright, girls," Ooyodo announced to the gathered Yamato, Musashi, Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Taiho. "You five possess radar and will be on base on Christmas Eve. As such, I will be handing you Santa's flight path and IFF."

The packets containing the information were duly passed out, the five shipgirls looking them over.

"You'll be in contact with the Russians when he arrives, and the Americans as he leaves," Ooyodo continued. "This is a global effort, and we shall all do our part."

"And if someone asks about Santa's location?" Musashi asked.

The secretary ship shrugged. "Tell them. That's half the reason we're doing this, after all."

A loud sniffle came from the end of the line, where Taiho stood. "Y-You mean Santa _is_ real, after all?" the carrier said hopefully, tears shimmering in her eyes.

"Yes, Taiho, there is a Santa Clause," Ooyodo kindly replied.

"Yes!" the armored carrier whooped. "Suck it, Kitakami, you were wrong!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

All six shipgirls glanced at each other, and then ran to the windows just in time to see Kitakami soar past them, screaming her head off.

"Well... that happened..." Zuikaku finally said once she was out of sight.

~o~

"Why the hell do we need to traipse through this frozen hellhole?" the frigate shipgirl Cape Breton grumbled as she and her companion Charlottetown trudged through the frozen wastes of Greenland. "It's Christmas Day! We should be at home enjoying our presents and some eggnog! But noooooo, because some Japanese shipgirl _somehow_ ended up here _we_ need to go get her!"

"Oh, quit your bellyaching," Charlottetown shot back. "The choice was perfectly random, we just got unlucky. And besides, the Japanese promised that defected Abyssal carrier of theirs as payment."

"Oh, yeah! Oh, it'll be fun to mess with her."

The two fell into a companionable silence until Cape Breton tripped over something.

"Owowowowowow..." the frigate groaned.

"Let me see..." Charlottetown kneeled to the ice, grabbing and yanking out a piece of metal that revealed itself to be a mangled single Type 96 25mm AA gun. "Okay, I think we're on the right track."

 _"Nuhhhhhhh..."  
_  
"Yup, definitely on the right track."

The two frigates picked up the pace, their sonar homing in on the low moan they'd heard. As such, it didn't take them long to find the battered light cruiser. Unfortunately, she was also half-frozen into the crater she'd made.

Cape Breton kneeled down next to Kitakami, placing a hand on her chest. "Fuel levels are low, but not critical," she reported. "She's not in danger of freezing to death anytime soon."

"Good," Charlottetown replied, pulling out an ice pick. "Because this is going to take a while."


	264. Rule 868

**By: Phan of Otak. Based on the JMPer's Belated Battleships.**

 **Rule 868: Koi is a fish. Poi is a destroyer.**

"Wheeeee!" White Plains giggled as her bow crashed through the towering waves, the crest of each wave high enough to douse the petite carrier's coppery hair in saltwater.

"Fucking ocean," muttered New Jersey. "Fucking wind, fucking weather, fucking sto-blergh"

A particularly towering wave crashed into Jersey, burying her in freezing water and splashing up a salty plume into her face.

New Jersey, Fubuki, Naka, Yuudachi and White Plains had just left Puget Sound to escort a convoy across the Pacific, and were sailing through one of the fiercest ocean storms they had ever encountered. Or, as the crab fishers called it, "The Bering Straight in winter".

"You're really not enjoying this are you?" Naka asked as she crested another wave.

"Oh jeez, what gave it away?" Jersey sarcastically shot back. "I'm just dancing the fucking tango with the ocean just for shits and giggles."

"That's the spirit!" Naka cheered as she somehow shifted into a cutesy pose, right hand forming a V as she gave a cute wink.

Jersey just gave her a blank stare, uncomprehendingly looking at Naka until she decided hanging around the perpetually over-cheerful idol of the Navy would ruin her sanity, and dropped back to corral some of the cargo ships that were starting to fall out of formation.

As she dropped back, Yuudachi pulled up alongside her. "White Plains-san seems to be having fun as well, poi~."

"Yeah," said Jersey, watching as White gave another happy giggle as a wave lifted her up. White then did a cute little hop over the tippy-top of the wave, and slid down the trough, squealing as she glided on the water.

It was fucking adorable.

"Yuudachi." Said destroyer perked up at Jersey when she heard her name. "I hear you say it a lot and I was wondering. What does 'poi' mean?"

Yuudachi promptly answered back, "Poi is poi~."

"Yea, but what does it MEAN?" Jersey repeated.

"P-Poi is poi because poi is poi poiiiii~~~" Yuudachi replied, forming incomprehensible gestures with her hands.

Jersey was now seriously considering "poi-ing" the Japanese destroyer with her 16" guns. That, and what her country could have possibly done to Japan to turn the proud IJN into something so brain-fuckingly wacko.

"Heeeeeey, Jersey-sempai!" came a voice from behind them. New Jersey looked back and saw Fubuki steaming towards them, pulling up alongside Jersey.

"Hey Fubuki," Jersey said, grabbing Fubuki's shoulder and bending down to ear level. "The fuck does 'poi' mean?'

Fubuki shot New Jersey a look as if she'd just asked what colorthe sky was. "Poi is poi."

Something in Jersey snapped, and her mouth released an ear shattering scream as she threw her arms up into the sky in exasperation. "YOU JAPANESE SHIPS ARE ALL FUCKING CRAZY!"

Fubuki and Yuudachi flinched away from Jersey. Naka was steaming towards them, a curious expression on her face. White Plains looked over at Jersey and stared, then shrugged. After all, Jersey was so cool and strong and mama-like - she turned to the front again and was promptly body slammed by a giant ocean wave.

"Crazy?" Naka smirked as she pulled up next to the small group. "Wait 'til you meet Kongou."

"Ahhhhh, Kongou-sempaiiii~~~~" Fubuki sighed dreamily as she clasped her hands together.

"Ahha! Kongou is so..." Yuudachi smiled, her hand coming up to cover the giggle slipping though her mouth. "Poi!"

"Poi what?" Jersey groaned. Now thoroughly exhausted, she just wanted this to _end._

"Poi!" explained Yuudachi.

"Kongou is considered the most... exuberant ship-girl in the JMSDF," Naka elaborated. "She's crazy for teitoku and does anything to win his affections, along with a bunch of weird stuff. Like stripteasing on teitoku's desk or fishing in a koi pond to relax or –"

"Koi what?" Jersey mumbled, still in the process of unfucking her brain, but she was coming around.

"Koi fish poi~," said Yuudachi.

Jersey held her hands out and weighed them like a scale.

"Koi is fish, but poi is poi. Koi is not poi, because poi is poi. Does that mean koi is koi and not poi, which is NOT fish, which is koi?'

"Jersey-sempai?" Fubuki asked. New Jersey seemed lost in thought. Wait… was that steam coming out of her ears?

'Poi is destroyer. Not fish. Fish are food, NOT friends. Koi is fish, so koi is food and isn't poi so…'

Fuck it, Jersey figured she'd get it all sorted once all this tomfuckery was over and she was in a nice hot bath.


	265. Rule 869

**Rule 869. _Sculpin_ may no longer cook her mystery meat for any of the subs returning from patrol.  
**  
"I'm so hungry," Seawolf groaned, clutching her stomach as the five submarines of her wolfpack ambled on the surface back to San Diego.

"I told you not to go gallivanting after that last light cruiser, but did you listen to me?" Searaven lectured. "Nooooo, you had to go kill it, and now you're almost out of fuel!"

"Hey, uh, where's Sailfish?" Apogon wondered.

Tarpon sighed before shouting over her shoulder. "Y'got flooding again, Sailfish?"

"I'm okay!" the other submarine called back. "Minor leak, I'm not gonna sink!"

"You said that last time, and we had to call in Kearsarge to fish you out of the bay!" Tarpon shot back.

"I'm fine, dammit! Jesus fucking Christ, it's not like I'm a ship _designed_ to sink or something! Oh, wait!"

"So hungry..."

Apogon watched the bickering with a bemused eye, then turned back to Searaven. "Is it always like this?"

"Nah, come back on a Tuesday sometime," Searaven replied. "Oh, hey we're here!"

Seawolf immediately perked up and began sniffing the air. "Oh, I think I smell food!" she announced. "Smells kinda good, actually!"

"Yeah, I think I see Sculpin on the pier!" Apogon announced. "And that's definitely a pot in her hands."

"Food!"

Seawolf, previously lagging behind, sped ahead, tongue hanging out with saliva dripping from it. Her fellow submarines could practically _see_ a dog's tail wagging behind her.

"Alright, alright, jeez!" Sculpin giggled as she held the pot away from Seawolf's attempt to get at it, to the amusement of the oncoming submarines. "Oh, hey guys! I figured you'd be hungry, so I cooked up some of my special Mystery Meat for you!"

That prompted the other four submarines to glance uneasily at each other. Any dish that had the word "mystery" in its name was, by long experience, always best avoided. And yet...

"Seawolf's nose would pick up anything bad, right?" Tarpon wondered.

"It should..." Sailfish said uneasily. "But, well, remember the last time we followed her nose?"

Searaven and Apogon shuddered simultaneously. "So many colors and I couldn't hit any of them..." the latter mumbled fearfully.

"So, we let her be the guinea pig," Searaven stated, to nods from Sailfish and Tarpon. "Well. Alright then. Yo, Sculpin! Go ahead and let Seawolf have the first helping, she's the hungriest!"

Sculpin nodded, and opened the pot, the four submarines still on the water watching intently. And when they saw what was within-

"Sculpin..." Tarpon said, her voice fearful. "What the hell is that?"

"I told you, it's mystery meat," the submarine replied, doling out a steaming pile of... grey... something onto one of those paper boat containers, which Seawolf immediately snapped up. "I just grab whatever's leftover from the kitchen and boil it all together with some spices."

Tarpon heard Sailfish softly retch beside her, and privately agreed. Maybe a steam ship could handle that shit, and definitely a gas turbine if they had any shipgirls with them, but diesels were delicate, dammit! You couldn't just put anything in them!

Apparently, Seawolf didn't get the memo, as she practically inhaled the meat. Her fellow wolfpack members watched expectantly as she swallowed.

"More please?" the submarine asked, handing out the paper boat.

"Well, that answers that," Tarpon sighed. "Alright, girls, let's top off our tanks a bit before heading in."

~o~

"How bad?" Holloway asked USS Holland as she closed the door on the five moaning, sick submarines.

"Tarpon, Searaven, Sailfish, and Apogon just had a bad bout of food poisoning," she reported. "Seawolf, though, had to get her stomach pumped. And I still don't know what was in that mystery meat."

"Offal," Holloway replied, his face in a tight grimace. "Shangri-La dropped by while I was lecturing Sculpin and ate some before I could stop her. Brain, heart, intestine, tendon..."

Holland grimaced as well. "Yeah, that'd explain it. Diesel engines are more sensitive to inputs than steam boilers." She blinked, and then shot a quizzical glance at her Admiral. "What did you do with that stuff, anyway?"

"Shangri-La took it to feed to the PTs," he said. "Don't ask me how, but their digestive systems are more dog-like than ship-like. They lapped that stuff up."


	266. Rule 870

**Rule 870. Since** ** _Barb_** **managed to use up all of the base's baking supplies for a one-to-one scale cake replica of a Wo-class Abyssal being struck by** ** _Albacore_** **'s torpedo spread, she is prohibited from baking until she can prove that her future cakes are not so extravagant.  
**  
 _'Contact!'  
_  
Albacore nodded at the hand signal her partner Barb had directed her way. _'Range and bearing?'_ she signed back.

 _'Wo-class, 12,000 yards, 135 degrees. No escorts.'  
_  
Nodding, Albacore slowly began to ascend for the surface, her hand right near her torpedo tubes, ready to launch. Finally, a few yards below the surface, she retrieved her periscope and sent it up. Sure enough, there was a Wo-class carrier obliviously steaming over the sea, not a destroyer in sight. She grinned, like a shark that's spotted a bare behind.

The only warning the Wo had was when she spotted six torpedo wakes less than five hundred yards off her port side. That wasn't nearly enough time to evade, and all six fish exploded against her legs, blowing them clean off and pitching her into the drink to sink to the bottom.

"Yes!" Albacore crowed, pumping her fist. So focused was she on her kill that she didn't notice Barb below her holding a camera, a blissful expression on her face.

"Senpai..." she breathed.

~o~

The cafeteria was a scene of barely-controlled chaos as Albacore walked in - and promptly ran up against a very long line of annoyed shipgirls.

"What's going on?" the submarine asked the last girl in line, a destroyer escort she didn't recognize.

"The whole kitchen's scrambling about like a bunch of headless chickens," the other shipgirl replied. "I think they're out of food or something."

Albacore frowned. Out of food? After just _breakfast_? That made no sense.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Every shipgirl in line perked up at the sound of Hancock's incredulous shout, especially since it came from outside. Albacore was the first out of the line to go investigate, a sizable group of curious shipgirls trailing behind her. Thanks to the submarine's sonar, they soon found themselves at the docks, staring at Hancock, Barb - and a giant cake that looked for all the world like a one-to-one scale replica of her torpedo salvo against that Wo-class carrier the other day. Distance shrunk, of course. Even the base's kitchens didn't have enough flour for an 8000-yard distance of water-colored cake.

Hell, it was actually rather impressive, even aside from its tremendous size. The frosting and cake itself had been colored so that they matched the colors of the incident perfectly. And the detail! Especially the faces!

Still, that didn't change the fact that Barb had apparently emptied the kitchens to make this thing. A fact made abundantly clear when Jerry, the ice cream barge shipgirl and the one shipgirl absolutely _nobody_ messed with, came storming up to Barb, her expression thunderous.

"C'mon," Albacore said to Hancock, tugging the carrier's arm. "Mystery solved, let's get out of here before we get caught up in Jerry's scolding."


	267. Rule 871

**Rule 871. Using Abyssals as bludgeons against other Abyssals is now forbidden.  
**  
Admiral Collingwood vowed to get more exercise as he sprinted to the docks, his breath coming in massive heaves and his uniform stained with sweat. He needed to stop her, before she made a terrible mistake.

Sliding around the last corner, he breathed a sigh of relief - as much as he could, anyway, with how little breath he still had - when he saw Hood just stepping off the docks, Campbelltown under her arm.

"Hood, stop!" he shouted.

The battlecruiser turned to face him, surprise and confusion on her face. "Admiral? What is it?"

"Hood..." he panted, still winded from the run. "You can't... take Campbelltown... with you..."

"What! Why not?" she complained.

"Yeah! I wanna bash in Abyssals with my face!" the old destroyer agreed.

"I just got back from talking to some of our repair ships," Collingwood answered. "Campbelltown, you've taken too many concussions. The repair ships have informed me that you cannot - cannot! - take any more, or your long-term health will be at risk."

Hood frowned, but Campbelltown beat her to the punch. "Ah, I don't need to worry about concussions!" she said dismissively. "They don't have any side effects!"

Collingwood sighed and Hood frowned even deeper. "Wait, they don't?" the battlecruiser asked, confused.

"Don't what?"

"Have any side effects."

"What don't have any side effects?"

"Concussions!"

"What about them?"

"GAH!"

"See what I mean?" Collingwood stated.

Grumbling slightly, Hood placed Campbelltown onto the pier and shooed her away, bribed by a spare candy bar. "So, what am I going to use as a weapon if the Abyssals attack in force?"

"I... don't think you have to worry about that."

~o~

"Goddammit, not again!" Bismarck shouted as she plowed through the North Atlantic seas.

"I know, right?" Tirpitz grumbled beside her. "I was going to go see a stage reproduction of 'The Snow Queen', and now this happens. So inconsiderate."

"And the worst part is, Hood doesn't have her usual bludgeon," Gneisenau added.

Bismarck paled at that news. "Wait, what?! Why?! No, don't answer that!" Her feet dug into the water as she pushed her turbines as far as she dared. "If she doesn't have Campbelltown, we need to hurry!"

"Ah... I don't think we need to worry," Graf Zeppelin reported.

"Why?"

"You'll see."

It was a familiar scene the Germans steamed into: a steady stream of shipgirls going the other way, a hard knot of battleships defending the carriers, and Hood in among the Abyssals, swinging a Re-class battleship by her tail.

"FORE!" she shouted, slamming the Re into a nearby heavy cruiser and sending the Abyssal flying.

"Ah, now that's the Hood I know and love," Bismarck nodded.


	268. Rule 872

**Rule 872. Disguising yourselves as abyssal submarines and sneaking into the Capital Ship Dorms at night to scare them was funny exactly once. Any further repeats will net the perpetrators harsh reprimands.  
**  
"H-Hello, I'm the Japanese destroyer Ushio. Please take care of me!"

"Wait wait wait wait," Cossack said as she watched the bowing destroyer. " _This_ is what we were designed to counter?"

"I must admit, she is a bit... underwhelming," Nubian agreed.

"Um... I-Is there something wrong?" Ushio asked, coming out of her bow.

"Nah, don't listen to these idiots," Gurkha cut in, shoving her two sisters aside. "We're glad to have you, Ushio."

The Japanese destroyer immediately brightened, her smile shutting up any objections Cossack and Nubian had.

~o~

"Uh... what are you doing here, Gurkha?"

Ushio had a right to be confused. She'd only had a few days to acclimate to Portsmouth, but even then she suspected that Gurkha showing up at her door dressed like an Abyssal submarine and with all the equipment to do the same to her was not a common experience.

"We need to get you out of that shell of yours," the British destroyer announced. "So we're going pranking!"

"And that requires us to dress up as Abyssal submarines... why?"

"Because we're going to sneak into the capital ship dorms and scare the living daylights out of them."

Privately, Ushio thought that was pretty mean. Outwardly, she just nodded and let Gurkha dress her up.

~o~

Eagle groaned as she padded to the kitchen of the Capital Ship dorms. Stupid Revenge and her stupid hip-hop crap late at night. Maybe some hot milk would help her sleep...

She flicked on the lights, and froze as she saw two white, stringy-haired Abyssal submarines staring at her, one holding a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and both looking just as surprised as her.

The carrier recovered first, grabbed a Swordfish from where another carrier - probably Furious - had left it lying on the counter, and hurled it at the closest submarine. It bounced off her head, eliciting a surprised "Au!". Eagle immediately took the opportunity to bolt the other way, screaming about submarines.

The two "submarines", one munching on Cheerios and the other rubbing a bump on her forehead, watched her go before the Cheerio-eater grinned widely.

"Oh, man, that was even better than I'd hoped!" Gurkha laughed. "Welcome to the Royal Navy, kid. Now let's scram before she wakes up Barham and Royal Oak."

Ushio nodded, and followed her British compatriot out of the building. They'd barely left when they had to duck into the bushes, Eagle, Barham, and Royal Oak thundering by towards the destroyer dorms. More hilariously, they hadn't changed out of their nightclothes, and Royal Oak clearly liked diaphanous silk. Oh, many, many sailors were getting an eyeful that night.


	269. Rule 880

**Rule 880. Whoever sent those kittens and baby rabbits to HMAS Australia will possibly be punished. Just like her namesake continent, she's very allergic to them.  
**  
"Ah-choo!"

"Bless you," HMS Dorsetshire said.

"'Fanks..." Australia mumbled, blowing her nose on a tissue. "Ugh. Thanks for letting me use your room while they clean out mine."

"Yeah, who knew you'd be allergic to rabbits?" the heavy cruiser mused. "Though whoever included the kittens should've known better. Your cat allergy is pretty well documented."

"Plus, I don't even like cats or rabbits," Australia groused. "Voracious, biome-destroyer buggers, the lot of them. Luckily, I got a note from Hobart a few days ago saying she was sending me some authentic Australian wildlife to keep me company here in Britain!"

Dorsetshire paled. Australian wildlife?! Here?!

"Oh, God, that bloody stupid light cruiser! I'm going to kill her!"

"Ah, don't worry," Australia said dismissively. "She only got a few animals, and most of them are rather harmless. Koalas are too lazy to do anything unless you provoke them, the crocodile is only a baby, and the sea creatures are all kept in a tank, as is the spider."

That allayed Dorsetshire's fears (mostly - she'd have to see about getting the crocodile sent back), and she breathed a sigh of relief. Relief that was short-lived when she processed the last animal.

"The spider...?" she breathed fearfully. "What kind of spider?"

~o~

Admiral Cunningham was having a good morning. He'd gotten a good night's sleep, to the point of waking up a few minutes before his alarm. The breakfast was especially good, as was the tea, and nothing had landed in his lap yet. Thus, he had a bright smile on his face as he slipped his feet into his boots.

"YARGH!"

The smile died a swift death as something clamped painfully onto his foot. He immediately began frantically kicking, sending the boot flying. That he promptly smashed a toe into the nearest wall was simply salt in the wound. Finally, though, the Funnel-Web Spider went flying and promptly scrambled off, barely avoiding getting stomped on by the stampede of shipgirls that came to respond to their Admiral's pain.

He was quickly bustled to the infirmary, given antivenom, and then fussed over by the repair ships. With their Admiral in good hands, the remaining shipgirls all suited up. They had a heavy cruiser to hunt.

~o~

"A Sydney Funnel-web," Australia answered. "And honestly, I don't think it'll be a problem. Even if it got out of its box, they like to burrow. Unless it got in someone's boot-"

"AUSTRALIA!" Revenge, Malaya, and Eagle all roared as they kicked down the door, every shipgirl in Portsmouth behind them.

"I had nothing to do with this. I'm innocent," Australia drawled. "I'm gonna guess you found the spider?"

"That we did," Malaya growled, cracking her knuckles. "Any last words?"

"Uh... It was Hobart's fault?"

Malaya mulled that over before hastily conferring with Argus.

"Acceptable," was the only answer.


	270. Rule 887

**Rule 887. All ship girls must now participate in Naka's 'public relations' course.  
**  
Junyo swayed and staggered her way down a Tokyo street, thoroughly inebriated. Though it would amaze most outsiders, the carrier did have her limits when it came to alcohol, and with a few exceptions was pretty good at staying below them. On the other hand, Junyou's limits were still well into the "drunk off her ass" end of the spectrum.

As such, it took a few minutes for her to realize that the grey blob following her was an actual person trying to speak to her.

"Wazzup?" she slurred.

"Junyou, why does the admiralty allow you to go out and getting drunk every night when you are one of the keys to humanity's defense?"

The carrier's alcohol-soaked brain spent several minutes trying to decipher the question before giving up and passing out in s pool of it's own vomit.

"'Cause I want to," Junyou replied. "Now go 'way..."

To her annoyance, the reporter followed, jabbering away. As such, she stopped again, turned around, and held a finger up to the woman's nose.

"Nose boop," she giggled, giving the reporter a hard shove with her finger and sending both her and her cameraman tumbling ass over teakettle. The annoyance gone, Junyou continued on. She had to be back in time to sleep off the alcohol, after all.

~o~

Enterprise yawned and leaned up, wiping sleep from her eyes. She took a moment to admire the sleeping form of her girlfriend before, smiling indulgently, she stood up, wrapped a bathrobe around herself, and wandered towards the front door of the clandestine apartment they thought nobody else knew about to grab the paper.

She was promptly disabused of the latter notion when she heard voices outside.

"What in the world?" she muttered, opening the door.

"Enterprise! Can you comment on yesterday's operation?"

"How is your relationship with Yamato proceeding?"

"Is there any truth to the rumors of the JMSDF employing Abyssal mercenaries?"

"Are captured Abyssals being treated fairly?"

"What do you think of-?"

"GAH!" Enterprise yelped, stepping back as the dozen-odd reporters camped out in the parking lot all start speaking at once. "Hey, back the fuck off, you tabloid scum guzzlers! You want an interview, you arrange it with the military like the _respectable_ news agencies!"

There was silence for a moment before a very brave or very stupid reporter spoke up. "What opinion do you have on the accusations that the military is violating the First Amendment?"

Enterprise glowered at the man for a moment, before turning around and marching back into the apartment, grumbling all the way. For a second, the reporters just awkwardly milled about, before Enterprise emerged again. The mics went back up before the reporters realized that Enterprise had retrieved her rigging and was pointing her copious AA at them.

"I'm only going to say this one more time, you fucking journalistic dropouts," the carrier growled. "Back. The fuck. Off."

They did, though not before making sure their cameras were rolling.

~o~

Submarine I-19, alias Iku, watched with undisguised fascination as a reporter interviewed Kisaragi - and the poor guy in the studio did his best to censor what she was saying. The ticker below was especially amusing. Things like: "Oh God why!" "She looks nine!" "Please stop interviewing this girl, I feel like I'm playing Diablo with the censor button!"

And though he was doing his best, things still slipped out.

 _"And then I would *bleeeeeep* and *bleeep* and cover him in [REDACTED] and then lick him all over!"_

 _"R-Right..."_ the rather green-faced reporter managed to get out. _"But, uh, about the other destroyers...?"_

 _"Psh, they don't have the guts to *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*. Though I'm still steamed at Kongo for turning down that [REDACTED]."_

"How have I not met this girl?!" Iku howled, tearing at her hair in frustration. "Maybe Fubuki'll know her number..."

~o~

Naka sighed as she looked over her students, who consisted of most of Yokosuka. Somehow she wasn't surprised.

"Alright, you idiots, welcome to Naka's class in public relations," the light cruiser announced. "You are all here because you have either proven you cannot be trusted in front of a camera, or you haven't completely embarrassed us yet and we want to be sure. As such, you will learn how to talk to the media, and in particular what you _cannot_ say."

A hand rose up in the back of the room. "Yes, Kongou?"

"Does this mean I can't call O'Bannon a 'potato deficient famine jockey' anymore?" the battleship asked.

Naka blanched. "Jesus fucking Christ, Kongou, no! Never say anything like that!"


	271. Rule 888

**Rule 888. Bismarck, we understand that you were upset over U-511's... Embracing of Japanese... "Culture", but whatever you did to Iku in retaliation, could you please undo it? The girls are more freaked out by "Sister I-19" than they were by Iku.  
**  
"This is ridiculous!" U-506 barked, slamming her fists on the table. "We vowed to make that 'Iku' pay for corrupting U-511, and yet we haven't done anything! It's been _months!_ "

"I'm telling you, U-506, it only _feels_ like it's been months since we made that vow," U-508 said placatingly. "I mean, a couple weeks in Okinawa, then the trip back... okay, it's been one month, but still, you're overreacting."

"Besides," U-510 cut in before U-506 could respond. "We've hardly been idle over the last month. We just haven't thought of anything."

"We've had lots of ideas!" U-506 protested.

"And all have been shot down on feasibility or for being not harsh enough."

U-506 grumbled under her breath for a few minutes, but ultimately backed down. "Alright, wise guy. What's your idea?"

U-510 grinned, and adjusted nonexistent glasses. "I say we get help."

~o~

"Oh, hey, girls. What's up?" Bismarck said as the three submarines poked their heads into their room.

"Uh, Bismarck, we need to talk to you about U-511," U-508 replied.

The battleship snapped her fingers in realization, a warm smile spreading across her face. "Oh, yeah, you guys visited her, didn't you? You have to tell me all about it! How's she doing adjusting... to..." Bismarck trailed off as she processed the uncomfortable looks on the three submarines' faces. "Uh, is something wrong?"

"About that..." U-510 said, pulling out her phone and handing it to Bismarck.

The battleship frowned and booted up the device, flipping through the photo album that had been left on the screen. On it was U-511 - and yet, Bismarck wouldn't have recognized her without the picture titles. The tan, the sun-bleached hair, the cheerful smile in place of her old dour shyness - and that swimsuit! Oh, God, the swimsuit!

"H-How..." she breathed.

"This stupid Japanese submarine called 'Iku'," U-506 spat. "We did a little digging and we're pretty sure it's I-19."

Bismarck clicked her jaw shut. She knew the Japanese shipgirl program had a... reputation for corrupting any foreigners who joined, but to be confronted by proof... On the other hand, there was one more question to be asked.

"Is she happy?" Bismarck asked.

"We think so," U-510 said uncomfortably. "And actually happy, not... whatever Tenryuu was feeling after Nagato got to her. God, that was creepy..."

The German battleship made a mental note to not ask as U-508 and U-506 shuddered in unison, and handed the phone back.

"I'll need to make some calls, but I can definitely get after I-19 for you." Smiling, Bismarck reached down and ruffled U-508's hair. "Don't worry. I've got the perfect idea."

~o~

"This is... bizarre," I-168, alias Imuya, said as she peered around a corner.

"It's unnatural is what it is!" I-58, alias Goya, hissed back. "I mean, not that I'm complaining about not having Iku trying to skinship us all the time, but this is just flat-out creepy!"

"Well, you're not wrong..."

"This" was, in fact, Iku walking down a corridor. A fairly normal occurrence, except for the fact that she was wearing a shapeless nun habit that completely obscured her... fuel tanks. Also, not only had she passed several shipgirls, including Musashi, and not felt them up, she'd _averted her eyes_. And _blushed_. And clutched the rosary on her necklace and muttered what Imuya and Goya were pretty sure was some sort of prayer. Increasingly, the two subs were beginning to think this wasn't bizarre, unnatural, or even creepy. No, it was a sign of the end times; pigs were flying, Satan was skating to work, and I'm pretty sure I just became a monkey's uncle!

No, wait, I meant... Kongo! Yes, Kongo was the monkey's uncle. Don't ask me how that works.

 _Anyway_ , Goya and Imuya were about to follow Iku further down when suddenly-

"Hey guys!"

Behind the two submarines stood I-8 "Hachi", RO-500 "Yuu", and I-401 "Shioi", the latter waving to them.

"Oh, hey," Imuya replied.

"Soooo... whatcha doin'?" Hachi drawled.

Imuya and Goya both grimaced before the latter indicated the corridor with her head. "See for yourself."

Yuu, Shioi, and Hachi all shared a curious glance before looking themselves. Their reactions... varied.

"Whoa..." Shioi said nervously, her eyes wide.

"Oh my..." Yuu said, a hand raised to cover her mouth.

"What... the hell..." Hachi breathed.

"Yeah," Imuya grimaced. "It's..."

"Bizarre?"

"Familiar?"

"A sign we should be looking for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"

"I was going to say odd, but those work- wait." Imuya turned to Yuu. "Did you say this was familiar?"

"Uh, yeah?" Yuu replied. "We have problems with lewdmarines, too. Most of the time we submarines handle it ourselves, but there are cases that get punted up to the surface ship command, and this is usually the result." The German expat frowned as she looked over Iku. "Though, I think this is the furthest anyone's taken it. Her whole personality's different."

"I see..." Imuya hummed. "In that case... Hachi, you and I are going to Admiral Goto to sort this out. The rest of you, watch Iku like she's a big fat fleet carrier going slow and stupid."

"Uh, that might be a problem," Goya said nervously. "She's gone."

~o~

Captain Yonehara sighed contentedly as he sat on the pier with his fishing pole, Ashigara leaning against his shoulder. Sometimes, it was good to just... bask in each other's company.

Even a nun wandering by didn't shake him from his contentment. He did briefly wonder how she'd gotten on base, but it honestly wasn't a big deal. It was only when she stripped off her habit, revealing Iku underneath, and then summoned a set of submarine rigging that his attention was grabbed.

"Ashi, honey, please tell me I'm hallucinating," he said, nudging her awake.

"Mwa...?" the heavy cruiser mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She squinted slightly at where Yonehara was pointing, and then flinched back.

"Is-Is that Iku?" she stammered. "Completely naked and not looking the least bit erotic?"

"Yes..." Yonehara answered, naked disbelief in his voice. "Yes, it is."

Iku promptly dove into the water just as Yuu, Goya, and Shioi arrived at the docks.

"Dammit, we're too late!" Goya wailed.

"Well, it's out of our hands now," Yuu decided. "You wanna go back to my place? I've got some German liquors stocked so we can go and _melt this memory from our minds._ "

"I'd like that," Shioi said, Goya nodding in agreement.

Yonehara and Ashigara simply stared as the submarines left. Then the heavy cruiser turned to the human supply officer and said, "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea."

"Agreed."


	272. Rule 894

**Rule 894. The mystery of whether or not Ship Girls can bear children is, for the remainder of the war, to remain just that: a mystery.  
**  
"U-Um... S-Sosuke?"

Captain Sosuke Yonehara, head of logistics for Yokosuka Naval Base, glanced up at his stuttering, blushing girlfriend. "What is it, Ashigara?"

"I-I want to, um..." Ashigara blushed and began letting steam out of her ears. "T-Tonight, I want to... try... uh..."

"What are you...?" Yonehara asked before letting out an 'oh' of understanding. "Ah. Have you ever..."

"Ah... N-No."

The logistics officer smiled and drew his girlfriend into a hug. "Don't worry, I'll make sure it's an enjoyable experience for the both of us." He sighed. "Gonna need to get some new condoms, the ones I have are a year old..."

Ashigara nodded along, before pausing and frowning in thought. "Wait... _can_ shipgirls get pregnant?"

Yonehara opened his mouth to respond - and then closed it as he thought over the question some more. "You know, I have no idea."

The couple stood in thoughtful silence for a few minutes before locking eyes and nodding. "Kongo and Goto?"

"Kongo and Goto."

~o~

"Can shipgirls get pregnant?" Goto repeated. "I've... honestly never thought about that. Kongo?"

"Well, I would like to have kids someday..." the battleship mused before turning a sunny grin on Ashigara and Yonehara. "But never mind that! CONGRATULATIONS on taking your relationship to the next step!"

"Thank you," Ashigara replied demurely. "And we ask because we wanted to be as safe as possible. Which means combining protection."

Goto and Kongo didn't answer in lieu of suddenly sweating with shifty-eyed expressions.

"Right... protection..." Kongo muttered.

Yonehara and Ashigara stared at their superiors in confusion before Yonehara dropped his head into his hands. "Don't tell me," he groaned.

The shiftiness intensified.

"That is surprisingly irresponsible of you two," Ashigara remarked. "I mean, any other considerations aside, I'd think you'd not want one of your best battleships sidelined for half a year, Admiral."

"Yes..." Goto drew out. "Well, nothing's happened, so... we'll get on that right away."

"Y-Yes," Kongo coughed into her fist. She then coughed again, seeming suddenly _very_ interested by her own feet. "There's... actually not much of a chance of anything happening, to be honest."

Yonehara raised a discrete eyebrow, looking at Goto.

The poor Admiral, suddenly an odd shade of red, got caught up in a coughing fit which left Kongo outright steaming in embarrassment.

*cough**cough**cough*"Stern"*cough*"work."*cough*

The poor heavy cruiser's mind seemingly crashed, her face paling and stare losing focus, instants before Yonehara pulled her out of the office accompanied by a running "GOTTAGOBYE!"

~o~

"It's _theoretically_ possible," Akashi mused. "I mean, we do undergo a menstrual cycle. But I can't say anything for sure."

"Well you know what that means!" Yuubari cut in, a turkey baster held in one hand. "Testing!"

Akashi sighed and pulled out a spray bottle. The light cruiser promptly got a face full of water and left, sputtering and wiping her face.

"Sorry about her," Akashi replied. "In any case, I'd recommend physical protection. I can tell you that birth control pills don't work right with our... biology, and if a tailor-made one has been made I haven't heard anything."

"Thank you, Akashi," Yonehara said, steering his frozen and blushing girlfriend out the door. "Let us know if you do find out anything on that front, okay?"

~o~

"E, can you make me that chicken liver with peanut butter?" Yamato called out to her girlfriend.

"Again?" came the reply. "That's the third time this week!"

"Yes!" Yamato called back, before muttering to herself. "Stupid weird cravings..."


	273. Rule 896

**Rule 896. In light of the incident involving Miss Iku, White Plains, and four Platypus (platypuses? Whatever), Iku has volunteered to help me demonstrate the Double Squid technique. -Haida  
**  
"What the hell am I looking at?" HMCS Haida wondered.

"Like, I don't even know anymore," USS Raymond shrugged. "But you can't, like, look away, y'know what I mean?"

"Yeah..."

The scene in question was a very naked Iku... wrestling with White Plains, four platypus's... platypuses... platypi? Whatever, you know what I mean. Four platypus hanging all over them.

"Well, like, on the plus side it looks like the usual Iku is back." The destroyer escort shuddered dramatically. "That whole 'Sister I-19' thing was, like, really creepy."

"Get..." White Plains shouted, finally managing to get a solid grip on the very slippery Iku. Both shipgirls pointedly didn't think about _why_ she was so slippery. "Off!"

Haida sighed as Iku slammed into the water courtesy of White Plains' suplex, a 5" shell to the face finishing the job. "Alright, get Iku a swimsuit and then tell her to report to me." The grin the Canadian destroyer sprouted was anything but happy. "She just volunteered to help me show off the Double Squid technique."

~o~

"Alright, you maggots, listen up!" Haida announced to the crowd of Japanese destroyers in front of her. "George has assured me that you have all become at least adequate with depth charge tactics! There's only one problem with that!" Haida sucked in a breath. "DEPTH CHARGES SUCK ASS! And so, today I will be demonstrating the good old Squid!"

Several fairies wheeled over what looked like three tubes in a metal box.

"The Squid is a three-tube set of 12" mortars, designed to bracket a submarine with explosives," Haida explained, bringing up a pair of sets on her own rigging. "You set the time fuzes-" Fairies scrambled up to the mortars, fiddling with the sets. "And fire when the submarine is about 275 yards in front of you! This requires precision and timing; no indiscriminate spray-and-pray like with depth charges! Observe!"

Haida turned around, and fired a total of six mortar bombs into the harbor. The resulting explosion lifted up a huge volume of water - and a shrieking I-19.

"Alright, any questions before we get started?" Haida asked as Iku slammed into the water again. "Yes, the blond with the black shirt."

"Does this mean Iku is back to normal, poi?"

"Yes, yes she is," came the answer, prompting a set of cheers. "Alright, the brunette in... the..." Haida's face fell into an exasperated frown. "Kongou, what are you doing here?"

"Learning this Double Squid technique, desu!" the battleship replied.

"Kongou, no, you're not a destroyer," Haida sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look, these things need sonar to provide range, and you don't have a sonar. Talk to me when you actually have one."

~o~

"Iku!"

The submarine in question glanced up from the page she was drawing on to see Fubuki in her doorway, several sheafs of paper in her hand and an annoyed glare on her face.

"Yeah, what is it?" she asked.

"Don't give me that," Fubuki admonished. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"I really don't."

Glaring even harder, Fubuki took the papers she had been holding and slammed them down in front of Iku. Sitting in front of the submarine was now a very familiar NTR doujin, her name emblazoned on the cover.

"Okay, so... what's the problem, again?"

"Don't try to act innocent, Iku," Fubuki replied. "It doesn't suit you. Are you honestly telling me that you don't see any problem with drawing a doujin involving Shimakaze NTR'ing Admiral Goto away from Kongou?"

"Nope!" Iku chirped.

"Well then..." Fubuki stated, pulling out a whistle. "Between that, your complete lack of remorse, and, of course, the absolutely _appalling_ art aside from Shimakaze, I won't feel bad about this."

"Feel bad about wha-?" Iku began, only for the whistle to interrupt her. The submarine shuddered, and turned around to behold Kongou standing over her, her rigging festooned with Squids and a demented grin on her face.

"Hiiiiiiii~!" Kongou greeted.


	274. Rule 900

**Rule 900: The proposal of having Captain Yonehara Sousuke fighting alongside the kanmusu against the Abyssal is to be rejected.  
**  
Captain Yonehara stood anxiously in the CIC of Yokosuka Naval Base, directing the flow of munitions, fuel, and repairs to the shipgirls streaming in. Nobody had expected _another_ Abyssal attack on Yokosuka, let alone with over 300 of the damn things above destroyer tonnage. Even with support from USAF, ROKAF, and JASDF aircraft, and at least one SSN taking potshots into the harbor, they were being pushed back, a steady stream of shipgirls being pulled out of combat due to critical damage.

Even as he worked, Yonehara kept an anxious eye on one particular friendly blip. Ashigara was out there with the rest of the heavy cruisers, fighting, and he couldn't help but be worried. Especially since she had the red markings of 'critical damage'.

"She'll be fine, she has Tenryuu and Desdiv 6 running interference," he muttered to himself. It didn't help. Especially when the black dot of a Re-class battleship detached from the mass of Abyssals and headed straight towards the small convoy. He clenched his fists, resisting the urge to go out and do... something. Anything!

"Go."

Yonehara stared askance at Admiral Goto. "Sir?"

"Go out and help your girlfriend," Goto elaborated. "Just don't get yourself killed, alright?"

"But... what about-"

"Sir," Lieutenant Kamata, his XO, cut in. "I can handle things here. Go out and save your girlfriend, okay?"

Stunned, Yonehara stared out over the CIC. Every sailor present who could take a second of attention off their stations gave him a thumbs up.

"Admiral, the Backfires are in position!"

With that, the CIC descended back into the usual organized chaos. Yonehara hesitated for a second before ducking out the door, sprinting towards the docks.

~o~

Sometime between leaving the CIC and the docks, Tenryuu must have gotten caught by the Abyssal battleship. The light cruiser looked terrible; one of her radar antennas was gone, her skin and the armor underneath torn open to expose her innards in a dozen places, the last-resort beam cannon installed in place of her left eye was so much sparking scrap, and her left leg was entirely _gone_. She wasn't sinking, but the only reason she was still moving was because Ikazuchi and Akatsuki were carrying her on their shoulders.

"Tenryuu!" Yonehara shouted, running up to her. "Is Ashigara-!"

"She's alive," Tenryuu replied, her usual scratchy growl deepened with the damage. "But she's in worse shape than me. Hibiki and Inazuma are trying to get her to shallow water she can sink in without dying, but that damn Re won't let them go."

"We're out of torpedoes and shells, otherwise we'd be helping!" Ikazuchi added.

Yonehara nodded grimly, before turning to head towards the closest truck. If they wanted shallow water, they'd go to the nearest beach. But before he could get anywhere, he felt Tenryuu tug at his sleeve.

"Hey," she rasped. "You're going to save Ashigara, right?" Yonehara nodded, prompting Tenryuu to grin. "Well, in that case, I can't let you go unarmed, or Ashigara'll come back to life just to kill me."

Reaching down, she slid her sword out of its sheath and pressed it into his hands. "Go get 'em, tiger." And with that, she let a fussing Akatsuki lead her to the docks.

Yonehara glanced at the sword, then nodded resolutely and resumed his search for a truck. He'd save her. He had to.

~o~

Ashigara winced as another salvo of shells landed around them, throwing up swells of water and lots of shrapnel. Her remaining armor was holding up, but poor Inazuma and Hibiki were bleeding from dozens of small wounds.

"Back off, nanodesu!" Inazuma barked, punctuating her point with a pair of 5" shells. "Hang on, Ashigara, we'll get you to safety."

The heavy cruiser didn't have the heart to correct her. She was sinking, and she knew it. The massive hole in her gut and missing left arm were both testament to that. Only a minor miracle and most of the two destroyers' damcon fairies were keeping intact that last scrap of flesh holding her upper and lower halves together. The beaching plan might have even worked, but with that Re-class battleship hounding them...

"S-Save yourselves..." she croaked.

"Nuh uh!" Inazuma replied, shaking her head. "We promised we'd get you to safety, and that's what we're gonna do, nanodesu!"

"Da, what she said," Hibiki grunted. She was bearing most of the weight of the sodden heavy cruiser, leaving Inazuma free to harrass the Abyssal chasing them. "Besides, the shore's in sight."

Indeed, there was the beach. Ashigara felt a bare scrap of hope flutter to life - and then it was brutally snuffed out as the Re-class battleship charged in ahead of them, bounding onto the beach with her guns aimed at them.

"Nyet!" Hibiki growled, trying to shift her position. It was no use, though. Though the battleship wielding them had been battered by 5" shells and lamed from three torpedo hits, the guns training on them were still fully capable of reducing them to so much scrap. Ashigara closed her eyes...

"OISHOTOOOOOOOOOO!"

And then opened them in shock as she heard Sosuke's voice ring out. The officer came out of nowhere, bringing a sword - was that Tenryuu's?! - down on the monster's tail. The blade bit deep, drawing a scream of rage from the Abyssal - and then Sosuke stomped on the back, driving the sword into the sand and clean through the tail.

Shrieking in pain and rage, the Re-class battleship whirled around, hands clenched in sharp claws. Sosuke, for his part, held up the sword in a shaky kendo stance. For a moment, the two held their positions - and then the Abyssal dove at her opponent. Whether unused to land or the loss of her tail, she sailed far overhead, Sosuke ducking under and planting the sword in her soft underbelly before drawing it off to the side. The Abyssal crashed to the sand, black ichor gushing from her perforated gut, and glared up at Sosuke, her face contorted into a vicious snarl.

His only response was to bring the sword down on her neck.

"Holy shit..." Hibiki breathed.

"Nanodeath..." Inazuma concurred.

Ashigara opened her mouth to throw in her two cents - and then blackness overtook her.

~o~

"I can't believe it," Ashigara said as she soaked in one of the repair docks with Tenryuu, who for her part was listening intently. "You beat a fucking Re-class in single combat with a _sword_ , and yet you end up in the hospital for _pulled muscles,_ of all things."

"I am still human," Yonehara pointed out as he sat in a nearby hot tub to relax his aching muscles. "And unlike Admiral Goto I haven't developed the full combat suite, so to say. I'm still as squishy as any normal person."

"Plus y'can't walk on water," Tenryuu added.

"That too."

"And just to be sure," Ashigara continued. "There haven't been any girls trying to throw themselves at you, right?"

"Oh, plenty," Yonehara answered. "Luckily, Kongo, romantic that she is, overheard the third one and took it upon herself to head them off after that."

Ashigara hummed thoughtfully. "It seems I owe Kongo some biscuits at our next teatime."

"Wow, how ungrateful can ya get?" Tenryuu said. "I mean, she helps you out like that and you repay her by poisoning her?" The light cruiser laughed as a blushing Ashigara tried to dunk her head underwater. "Kidding, kidding!"


	275. Rule 901

**Rule 901. A letter of condolence is to be sent to the Abyssal Forces. They somehow got the Russian Baltic Fleet of Dogger Bank Fame on their side.  
**  
 _"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_ the Director cackled as the summoning circle shined beneath her. _"Yes! Those fools left some shipgirls for me to grab! They'll regret that oversight once I summon them as my own!"_

"Uh, is this wise, Director?" the Director's assistant asked hesitantly. "There must be a reason these girls weren't summoned. They've been summoning everyone else, including all the Miss Warcrimes."

 _"Perhaps, perhaps not! But that is the joy of_ SCIENCE! _An expected result? An obvious next step? Bah! I spit on predictability!"_ The shine of the summoning circle reached its peak, the sound of a Gregorian choir made up of castrated pedophiles filling the room. There was a flash - and there stood almost two dozen shipgirls with the distinct chalk-white skin and black color scheme of the Abyssals.

 _"SUCCESS!"_ the Director crowed, eagerly rubbing her hands together. _"Now, why don't you all..._ _introduce..."_

The Director trailed off as she took in the rigging of the girls in front of her. Or rather, the rigging of a specific four. The rounded twin 12" turrets, the equally rounded twin 6"... only a handful of ships had ever carried their armament like that, and only five had belonged to a proper class.

"Oh shit," the Director muttered as one of the girls stepped forward.

[Battleship Knyav Suvorov, third of the Borodino-class, reporting for duty, ma'am!] she announced.

[Ah! Japanese torpedo boats!]

[WHERE?!]

Aside from Suvorov, every single one of the summoned shipgirls immediately aimed their guns in random directions and fired. The sound and smoke filled the room, and heavy shells flew in every direction. None of them exploded, their explosive filler poorly made. None of them hit Suvorov, the Director, or her assistant, so poorly aimed they were.

The rest of the Second Pacific Squadron wasn't so lucky.

[Ow!] Sissoi Veliky yelped as a 6" shell bounced off her skull.

[Ow!] Zhemchung yelped as a 12" shell grazed her ribs.

[Ow!] Kamchatka yelped as a half-dozen shells all struck her at once. [Owie...]

Suvorov facepalmed, muttering a string of Russian curses under her breath, even as the Director and her assistant watched the scene in mute horror.

~o~

"Aurora?" Maxim Gorky asked as the protected cruiser suddenly stiffened and looked east. "What's wrong?"

"I felt a great disturbance," she muttered. "As if the Pacific Derp Squadron had returned."

Maxim Gorky opened her mouth to respond, only for an Abyssal battleship to breach the surface less than a hundred feet away. Immediately, both cruisers aimed their guns at the interloper, for all the good it would do. To their surprise, the Abyssal immediately held up her hands in surrender.

[Don't shoot, don't shoot!] she pleaded. [I'm not here to fight, Aurora and... whoever you are!]

Aurora frowned and lowered her guns, though Maxim Gorky kept them pointed at the Abyssal. She squinted at the rigging, then at the fairy that had popped up on her shoulder. "Suvorov?"

[Yeah, that's me!] the battleship beamed.

"... Why do you look like an Abyssal?"

[Because I am one. Have been for a few months,] Suvorov replied, before sighing. [Look, I'm starving, I've got valuable intelligence, and you know I'm not as derp-tastic as the rest of the fleet. Let's just-]

Suvorov cut herself off as Aurora snickered, then stared at her along with Maxim Gorky as the protected cruiser descended into full-on deep-belly laughter.

"THE ABYSSALS GOT THE PACIFIC DERP SQUADRON?!" she howled, tears flowing from her eyes. "OH, THAT'S TOO MUCH! IT'S KARMA, IT'S GOTTA BE!"

Maxim Gorky lowered her guns, and gave Suvorov a searching glance. "You lot were really that bad?"

[Yes...] the battleship sighed. [Yes we were.]

~o~

For once in her life, William D. Porter felt sorry for an Abyssal. Multiple Abyssals, in fact.

She glanced down at the groaning pile she'd piled up on a nearby atoll to keep them from sinking. All of them were new types she didn't recognize, and given they included ten battleships and a half-dozen cruisers, she should've been reduced to scrap in short order. But...

Their shooting was terrible! The destroyer had literally never seen or _heard of_ shooting that bad before, and she'd talked to Edsall! And the coordination; it was like they were drunken monkeys trying to walk upright on ice! Hell, they'd taken out more of each other than she had! Not that she'd done badly, no. All of them had some sort of phobia of fire, as she'd found out by accidentally loading and firing a star shell and gleefully exploited thereafter.

"I just don't know what went wrong..." sniffed the repair ship that was with them for... reasons.

"Wow. Is this what I looked like from the outside?" Willie D. muttered. "I'd better buy Iowa some of Wreck's rotgut whiskey."


	276. Rule 905

**Rule 905.** ** _Harder_** **,** ** _Kuroshio_** **/ex-** ** _Mingo_** **is not going to quote-unquote "Seduce me to the dark side like what they did to Stew-Maru and that Kraut if you leave me alone with her!" All of the other Gatos are currently busy and/or recovering from their patrols. You are the only one available for the task.  
**  
"Hello, everyone! Submarine Kuroshio, Gato-class, reporting for duty!"

Goto took in the sight of the Gato-class submarine, who looked for all the world like a tanned Brazilian Japanese, dressed in a school swimsuit like all the other Japanese submarines, before sighing.

"Someone call Holloway and tell him we've got one of his submarines," he said to Ooyodo.

~o~

"'Sup," Harder drawled as she slumped sprawled in the chair in front of Admiral Holloway's desk.

"I have a new mission for you, Harder," Holloway said, sliding the briefing over to the submarine. "You're going to Japan again."

"Fuck yeah," the submarine grinned. "More of a chance to scare the shit out of those little... Jap..." Her eyes widened as she read the briefing, and her head swung up to throw a disbelieving stare at her Admiral. "You can't be fucking serious."

"I'm quite serious," Holloway retorted. "Mingo was summoned as the JMSDF Kuroshio, and since she wants to stay in Japan, Admiral Goto has requested a Gato to help get her up to speed."

"Nononononono, I am not going there," Harder immediately denied. "I go there, and she's going to seduce me to the Dark Side like what those damn Japs did to Stew-Maru and that Kraut!"

"Well, first, you're going to take sensitivity classes again," Holloway said, glaring at the submarine. "And then you're going to do this, because I am not asking."

"Can't you get someone else to do this?" Harder pleaded. "I mean, besides the fact that I don't want to do it, I'm a terrible choice!"

"All of your sisters are either on patrol or recovering from patrol," Holloway countered. "You're the only one we have available, which is your own damn fault, need I remind you."

"THE DIARRHETIC RHINOCEROS WAS NOT MY FAULT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Harder howled.

"But the superglue, chicken feathers, olive oil, and super-strength condoms were," Holloway countered again.

Harder didn't have an answer to that, and she slumped back into the chair, grumbling.

~o~

"Stupid Japanese... stupid Admiral... gotta be on my guard, constant vigilance..."

Harder perked up in her sneaky creeping through Yokosuka's halls as she caught sight of an unfamiliar Japanese destroyer. And even better, it was one of the smaller (and thus older and weaker) ones!

"Heheheheheheh..." Harder chuckled. "This is gonna be fun."

The submarine fell into her patented "destroyer-stalking stance", slowly creeping up on the oblivious kanmusu. Slowly, she caught up, clasping her hands together for a kancho. As much as Harder hated all things Japanese, she had to admit, it was a damn good prank.

"GOTCHA!" Harder shouted, jabbing her hand up - and then suddenly she was airborne and crashing through a wall.

"Oh, shoot!" Take yelped as she took in the wreckage and Harder's legs sticking out of it. "Auuuuu, Akashi's gonna yell at me again!"


	277. Rule 909

**Rule 909. Can HMS** ** _Delhi_** **please stop using any kind of damage to put her friends and associates in for a refit at US Navy yards? We get your enthusiasm for the 5"/38s and the 3"/50s but the waitlist is already booked for weeks.  
**  
HMS Dragon sighed out a cloud of steam as she sank into the hot waters of the repair docks. It had been a close call, but the Abyssal destroyers were on the bottom of the ocean and she was here ready to enjoy some of Delhi's famous curry. And not de-spiced, either; she was one of the only Royal Navy shipgirls who could handle Delhi's curry at full strength, and she was proud of it.

Ah, and there she was right now, pot in hand!

"Hey, Delhi!" Dragon called out, waving her hand. "Over here!"

Delhi immediately perked up and made her way over to her sister's tub.

"How bad is it?" she asked as she started doling out curry.

"Well, my damage wasn't so bad," Dragon replied as she mixed the curry and rice together, not noticing Delhi's wince. "But my rigging's totally trashed. They're saying they may need to scrap it entirely. Definitely need to replace the guns."

"You need to replace the guns, huh?" Delhi mused, before grinning. "I've got it! We're going to America!"

Dragon paused in her curry eating to give her sister a quizzical glance. "Huh?"

"We're going to America to get you some 5"/38s!" Delhi explained, before reaching down and grabbing her sister under the armpits. "C'mon, let's- YARGH!"

Dragon sighed and watched her sister clutch her face, steam leaking from her mouth. "Dammit, sis, I still need repair," she groused. "Besides, there's a massive waiting list for those kinds of refits. Something like six weeks." The light cruiser sank back into the water and went back to eating. "Don't worry about it, okay? The Admiralty said they're gonna do the next best thing and give me six 4.5" guns and as many Bofors as they can fit. I'll be fine."

Delhi grunted out an affirmative, but inside her mind was whirling. So there was a waiting list, huh? Well, she had a solution for that.

~o~

"Delhi..." Danae groaned. "Who is this?"

"Yo. Truxtun Cross, upgrade engineer for the US Navy," the chocolate-skinned young man tied up in a chair in front of her replied. "I gotta say, is this gonna become a thing? Because getting kidnapped like this is seriously inconvenient."

"He's my solution for giving everyone 5"/38s!" Delhi chirped.

Hand, meet face. Delhi's obsession with her American guns and getting everyone in the Royal Navy carrying them was rather infamous. Still, even Diomede hadn't bet on her _kidnapping_ the guy responsible for those AA upgrades.

"And like I said to you, if you can find me enough fairies with experience with that gun type, I can do it," Truxtun said, grinning. "I doubt that, though. Besides, I'm gonna be out of here soon enough."

"Hmph!" Delhi sniffed, though Danae frowned. "Those colonial heathens will never be able to find you!"

"I'm pretty sure you're one of those 'colonial heathens', too."

"Shut up!"

As the two started into a shouted back-and-forth, Danae wracked her brains. Something about the name Truxtun Cross was tickling a memory, but for the life of it she couldn't remember what. It was a moot point, anyway, as a loud crash coming from the battleship dorms broke through both Danae's thoughts and the ongoing argument. The light cruiser rushed to the window and threw it open to reveal the massive, freckled form of Louisiana outside, Royal Oak, Barham, and Ramillies hanging off of her with Revenge being used to beat Resolution over the head.

"Oh, right, now I remember..." Danae muttered before turning a pleading look on Delhi. "For god's sake, return him before Louisiana gets to us next!"


	278. Rule 912

**By: Sheo Darren**

 **Rule 912. Thunder Child is not allowed to teach ramming lessons to ship-girls with histories of ramming other ships.  
**

 **A Foggy Day**  
 _Scapa Flow_

"My sisters and my brothers!" Thunder Child announced, bestowing a proud smile upon the line of disparate ship-girls of all types from various national navies. "It has come to my attention that there is a shocking lapse in your education regarding the art of warfare! Yes, what it is?"

"Brothers?" asked the ship-girl raising her hand. She could see only one ship-boy here, a handsome White Star civilian cruise liner who reminded her of a popular actor.

"I think Thunder Child-san means you, sis," Mikuma explained.

Mogami's face fell. "But I'm a girl," she protested.

Thunder Child blinked. "Eh?" She studied the dejected Japanese heavy cruiser. "I could have sworn you were a lad... My apologies, lass."

The torpedo ram cleared her throat.

"My sisters and my brother! I shall be the first to confess that I am no expert in what you declare to be modern warfare. However, I believe that the lessons of the past must always be part of the present preparation for any future warfare. I have therefore taken it upon myself to fortify your minds and bodies in regards to this appalling vulnerability lest the insidious enemy detects this chink in your armor."

Steel rang upon steel as armored knuckles slammed into the palm of their opposite gauntlet.

"From this day forth, I shall instruct you in the ancient naval martial art of RAMMING!" Thunder Child boomed.

Her students stared at the ebullient 1860s protected torpedo ram as if she had metamorphosed into a Black Smoke-belching, heat-ray-firing tripod from the Red Planet.

"This is stupid." There was an echo in Wisconsin's disbelieving voice that demonstrated a bit of a Kentucky twang. "We're ship-girls. Why should we learn how to ram when we've got our guns?"

Thunder Child responded by grabbing the grumbling American battleship by the front of her shirt and slamming their foreheads together with nary a warning. Wisconsin went down like an anchor. This was partly because the bigger ship-girl did not wear a helmet while the petite Brit enjoyed the protection of her knightly headgear, partly because the sleek bow of the _Iowa_ class was nothing compared to the deliberately reinforced armored prow of a dedicated ramming ship, and partly because Magical Sparkly Shipgirl Bullshit (tm).

"I pray you were paying attention to that," Thunder Child lectured the other ship-girls, who were torn between dismay and wonder. "If the Yankee had known how to angle her skull to present its thickest and most cushioned section to my incoming ram, she could have minimized the chances of concussion and unconsciousness, allowing her to maintain her defenses or even mount a counterattack!"

"Ooowww," moaned Wisconsin as Thunder Child kindly hauled her back on her feet. "What was the pennant number of the destroyer that hit me?"

"Hey! You were the one who hit me, remember?" This was the _Fletcher_ class DD-510, USS Eaton, who had a lot of collisions to her inglorious credit.

"There will be none of that," Thunder Child interveneed as she turned Wisconsin over to Eaton. "You are all here to learn from your mistakes and become stronger."

"B-B-But mine were all accidents!" Inazuma sniffled. She was not the only to notic that all of the ship-girls gathered here were the avatars of historical warships known for accidental collisions. Surely this was a punishment detail for the time she accidentally rammed Miyuki-chan during a training exercise!

Thunder Child gently laid her gauntlets upon the shaking shoulder of the adorable Akatsuki-class destroyer.

"And under my tutelage, young Lightning," she assured Inazuma, "You will gain the discipline to control yourself, the discerning eye for the correct circumstance, the fortitude to seize the fortunate opening, and the skill to launch yourself at a drop of a lady's handkerchief at a jousting tournament."

"I will?" The tiny destroyer perked up. "I won't have accidents again? I can protect my sisters and Tenryuu better?"

"Most definitely. This I swear by Lord Nelson," Thunder Child promised her.

Electric emotion sparked within Inazuma's wide-open doe brown eyes. "Thunder Child-sensei!" she bowed. "I'll do my best!"

"That's the spirit! Let's begin your training!"

~o~

 **At The Same Time**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_

"Tenryuu-chan?" Tatsuta asked her nonchalant sister. "Are you sure Inazuma-chan will be all right in Britain alone and away from her sisters?"

"Quit worrying, Tatsuta. Thunder Child-dono promised to watch over Inazuma," replied Tenryuu as she flipped to the next page of her manga.

"I don't know… I've heard stories about that ship-girl…"

"Tatsuta, I **fought** her. You know you can only understand someone else when you fight her? Believe me, I **know** her better than most. Thunder Child-dono and Inazuma will have a lot of fun," assured Tenryuu.

"That's exactly why I have a bad feeling about this," insisted the shivering Tatsuta.

~o~

 **Later**  
 _Scapa Flow_

"HAWAWAWA!" laughed Inazuma after her latest success. "NANODEATH!"

Scattered around her cute shoes were the slivers that had once been a training dummy designed to simulate a Battleship Ru Class down to its armor scheme. Sparks of blue plasma akin to Abyssal miasma swirled around her.

"Excellent form, Inazuma!" Per her promise to Tenryuu, Thunder Child had taken Inazuma under her personal wing.

She looked over the other ship-girls.

"Double-" Mogami called out.

"-Mogami-" Mikuma continued.

"-Smasher!" So declared the two sisters as they smashed through the massive fuel tanks of the replica of the Seaport Water Demon.

Abukuma could not stop grinning. "Oh, that felt **sooo** good," she said of the broken copy of Ooi assigned to her use as target practice.

"I understand now," whispered Wisconsin as she hugged the similarly contemplative Eaton and spoke to the part of her sister Kentucky that dwelt in her body due to her borrowed bow. "Every naval rifle needs a bayonet for the charge…"

The cruise liner ship-boy wordlessly smashed up the ice statue designed to look like a certain Allied Installation Type.

"Well done, everyone." Thunder Child tipped her head. "I believe you are all ready to join our comrades in an actual operation!"

~o~  
 **  
The Next Day**  
 _Strait of Gibraltar_

The horned head of a pale-haired, crimson-eyed, coldly beautiful and rather nervous-looking woman protruded out of the peaceful waters to scan her surroundings. She turned around a full 360 degrees twice. No enemies in sight.

A huge metallic hand came out of the water. Her wicked claws carefully cradled an ornate timepiece. Definitely not tea time.

The mighty Rock Fortress Princess cautiously brought the rest of her body up. Copious amounts of water were still sluicing off her airfields as her Takoyaki aircraft emerged from their reinforced hangars and her subordinate warships steamed out of her harbor.

Long were her preparations for this assault on Gibraltar. She had waited for the right time, when Force H was away and Force Tea was **not** enjoying hot cuppas. She had gotten the help of several other Princesses and Oni, including Island Siege Empress who now surfaced beside her.

This time Rock Fortress Princess will get to where she belongs!

"Tally ho!" came the clear call as ship-girls began rising from the horizon.

[Not again,] she whined to Island Siege Empress. [Every single time!]

But this wasn't Force H. Nor was it Force Tea. Its ship-girls were a seemingly random mix of vastly different services and types and classes. And the leader was the worst, that impossible warship, the black knight-errant of the seven seas, Thunder Child. And at her side stood her new squire, who appeared to be emitting a crackling aura of plasma energy.

The Abyssal Princesses hastily redeployed their fleet. Their forces outnumbered their opponents. They could do this!

"RAMMING FLEET!" Thunder Child thundered. "CHARGE!"

[Wait,] gulped Rock Fortress Princess. [What?]

The ship-girls steamed forward. They did not fire despite being fired upon. They bore down on the Abyssals as swiftly and silently as their enemy until they closed to knife-fighting range. And then, true to the name of their fleet, they did what they did best.

Dreadnought ran over a startled So Class Submarine. Glowworm crashed through a shocked Ne Class Heavy Cruiser. Other Abyssal cruisers folded like paper tigers upon the heads and shoulders of Mogami, Mikuma, and Abukuma.

Even the powerful Princess and deadly Water Demon Types fared no better. Buckley and Vetehinen double-teamed the flailing Submarine Princess, who was starting to sound more and more like their Fleet of Fog ally Iona. U-66 repeatedly German suplexed sense into Destroyer Princess until she turned into Harusame. Likewise the Light Cruiser Demon split apart into a confused Naka and an even more confused Agano after Prince Eugen head-butted her.

And Inazuma?

"RAIDEN LIGHTNING!" shrilled the little destroyer as she body-slammed her target like a lightning bolt out of the blue.

"Despite... sinking in the dark... cold... lonely... painful... southern sea... I... can see... you're..."

And that was when the soundly defeated Destroyer Water Demon turned into-

"Hagikaze, 17th Ship of the Kagerou-class Destroyer, reporting! Commander, please give me your orders!"

"Ram them NANODEATH," tittered Plasma-chan.

"Roger! Enemy vessel discovered! Open fire!" And Hagikaze flying-kicked a hapless I-Class.

[What is going on?!] yelped Island Siege Empress as she was subjected to the madness that often tormented Rock Fortress Princess.

[Look out!] warned her sister Installation.

There was a ship-girl, a destroyer by the looks of her, approaching them! How did they not notice her until it was too late?

Wait… Island Siege Empress could see what looked to be a Ha-Class Destroyer floating behind their sneaky attacker. Did the ship-girl pretend to be one of their own destroyers to get this close to them?

[Bring her down!] Rock Fortress Princess warned Island Siege Empress.

But the destroyer tanked the hits. And she kept coming without even slowing until she slammed into Island Siege Empress.

Rock Fortress Princess had a bad feeling about this…

[It won't take long for me to repair the damage you cause,] snarled Island Siege Empress in defiance of the puny ship-girl clinging to her belly.

The destroyer grinned. "I'm not quite as foolish as you think!" she replied in an accent that mixed British Received Pronunciation and American English while the soft but ominous sound of pencil fuses finally made itself heard.

And then she **exploded** , taking the horrified Island Siege Empress with her.

On the other side of the battlefield, Thunder Child whooped. "Right on time, Campbeltown! That child is like a sister to me!" She turned to the lone carrier. "Melbourne, dear friend! If you may do the honors?"

"Gladly, Thunder Child!"

The terrified Rock Fortress Princess frantically made best speed. She was forced to leave behind an unconscious Island Siege Empress. The limp form of her sister now flew two flags, Union Jack and Old Glory, planted by a maniacally-grinning Campbeltown wearing her Stars & Stripes pattern underwear.

[I have to get away before-]

"Gotcha, mate!"

The Abyssal Installation tried to look over her shoulder only for her rigging to get in the way. She turned around to get an actual look at her pursuer, and turned even more milk-white when she recognized the type of warship that had caught up to her.

[Not another one!]

"Sorry, mate. It's tradition, y'see. Nothing personal."

And Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne rammed Rock Fortress Princess with a yell of "DAEDALUS ATTACK!"

~o~

 **Same Time**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_

Tatsuta planted her face into her palm as DesDiv 6 reacted to the sight of the mousy Inazuma rail-gunning herself into the enemy destroyer.

"My little sister is an elegant lady now!" And Akatsuki was so happy that she even pronounced the word correctly.

"Why is Inazuma relying on that Thunder Child?" complained the jealous Ikazuchi. "She should rely on me, Kaminari!"

"Glug glug glug," went Hibiki as she hit the bottle again, harder.

Tenryuu dabbed at her exposed eye with a handkerchief. "Inazuma is growing up so fast," she approved.

"THAT'S IT! WE'RE BOMBING PORT DARWIN!" threatened Yuubari and Akashi as Melbourne planted the Commonwealth Blue Ensign flag atop the crying Rock Fortress Princess.

~o~

 **Right Afterwards**  
 _This Is The Enemy Waters_

"Achoo," went Seaport Princess.

"Bless you, Darwin-chan," said Admiral Suwabe.

"Someone must be talking about me," mumbled the Abyssal Installation.

"... Someone needs a new Darwin Award, hmmm?"

"Admiral is so hot when he's serious..."

~o

 **And Still Later**  
 _The North Sea_

"YOU!"

Canadian Installation Type ship-girl Habbakuk was minding her own business when she heard someone calling her out.

"Leonardo di Caprio?" she gasped. "No, wait, Titanic?"

"ROUND TWO, BINT!" yelled the fortified White Star cruise liner. "PAYBACK IS A B*TCH!"

And RMS _Titanic_ rammed the astonished HMCS _Habakkuk_.

Langley is jelly.


	279. Rule 916

**Rule 916. Do not use lava against Abyssals as a weapon.  
**  
Furutaka, ensconced on the slopes of Iwo Jima, watched nervously as the flashes and rolling thunder of battleship gunfire crept ever closer to where she and Yuubari were.

"Yuubari..." she whimpered. "Are you sure this will work?"

Yuubari, her hand on a lever and a manic grin on her face, threw her head back and cackled. "Hahahahaha! I have no idea!"

"I was afraid of that..." Furutaka groaned.

It had been several months ago that the light cruiser had tapped her to assist with a "long-term project". It wasn't until she was directed to bury 8" high-explosive shells in tunnels carved deep into the island that Furutaka had realized the true madness of Yuubari's plan. And by then it was too late to back out, lest she fail to moderate the light cruiser's madness.

The heavy cruiser was knocked out of her remembrance by the guns suddenly falling silent. Lookouts in her rigging reported that their own battleships were retreating towards the island. This was it. The show. She gulped. God forgive her.

"They're coming, Yuubari!" she called up.

"Got it!"

The battleships - a mix of Ru and Ta-class - stormed up onto the beach, their optics immediately zeroing in on the rather conspicuous form of Furutaka up the slope. They grinned, stepped forward - and then the whole island shuddered as Yuubari flipped the switch. A massive gout of pulverized rock surged out of the side of the island, burying the Abyssals. But these were _battleships_. Burying them in rock wouldn't do anything. Within minutes, they were back on the surface.

Just in time to catch a surge of lava from the island's new fissure.

"Yes!" Yuubari cackled, even as Furutaka shuddered at the pained screams coming from their opponents. "It works! It works! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

~o~

Naka kicked her feet back and forth as she waited for Akashi to come take a look at her. Her #2 3" gun was acting up... again. Damn thing never seemed to work. She gazed around the workshop, most of it familiar. Machinery, parts, whole gun turrets - and a bright red button labelled "Fuck the world". Frowning, she got up, walked toward it, and reached out-

*THWACK!*

"Bad!" Yuubari barked, withdrawing the paper fan she had used to smack Naka's hand. "Don't touch that. That's the detonator for the Katies I have planted in Yellowstone."

Naka paled dramatically at that news. _Everyone_ knew what bad news Yellowstone was. And this madwoman had planted _nukes_ around it?!

"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Naka demanded.

"Maybe?" Yuubari replied. "I mean, what kind of mad scientist would I be if I didn't have a way to end the world? Of course, it's not done yet, there are several more supervolcanoes I need to seed."

"Okay..." Naka said, before pulling out her phone and jabbing her finger at something behind Yuubari. "Look! A wild Mewtwo!"

"Where?!" Yuubari yelped, immediately whipping out her phone to grab the Pokemon...

*CLONK!*

Naka heaved a sigh as she pulled back the dented torpedo she'd smacked Yuubari upside the head with.

"Hopefully the Americans can find and defuse those things," she muttered as she grabbed Yuubari by the legs and began to drag her out.


	280. Rule 921

**Rule 921. German shipgirls are no longer allowed to make the preparations for New Years fireworks.**

Admiral Hartmann was a busy man. The end of the year drew near and the preparations for Christmas took up a lot of time. But there was a second event coming that excited him, his girls, and Sylvester. The last day of the year. He wondered how the girls would celebrate it. He knew that he'd be watching Dinner For One for the 55th time. He wondered if he could finally finish the firework Katyusha he was building in his spare time.

A knock on the door roused him from his thoughts and plans. He looked up to see Graf Spee poking her head in.

"Come in," Hartmann said with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"It's about Sylvester," Graf Spee began.

Hartmann nodded. "I'm really looking forward to it. If all goes well I can fire my rockets from a Katyusha this year."

Graf Spee's eyes widened. She had seen videos of Stalin's Organs, as they had been nicknamed, and knew how many rockets those could fire at once. "Can we test it here?" she asked.

Hartmann shrugged. "I don't see why not."

Grinning, Graf Spee left Hartmann's office quickly, her original reason for coming forgotten. She needed to spread the good news to the other girls. Admiral Hartmann had a Katyusha. Within hours the whole base knew about Hartmann's Katyusha. And from the base, the knowledge spread.

Admiral Cunningham had gladly granted Campbeltown leave when she asked for it and indicated she wanted to spend some time in Germany with her friends, U-96 and U-300. Cunningham knew those girls as sensible; hopefully they would keep her out of trouble.

Admiral Holloway and Admiral Briggs also saw no problems granting the Taffies and South Dakota leave. They had earned it several times over in the last months, running themselves ragged. Also, SoDak's latest stunt which had given Shimakaze sisters had tugged a lot of heartstrings. Enough heartstrings that the President himself had handed down an approved form for South Dakota's cloning experiment to the SecNav, who in turn handed it down the line. No one questioned how the President could have "forgotten" about the order until everything was over and done and Shimakaze had sisters running around. South Dakota also wisely didn't talk Enterprise into coming with her. What she had heard from Germany promised SCIENCE!, definitely not something she wanted to alert E to.

Akashi and Yuubari, meanwhile, bribed Hoppo into giving their forms requesting leave to Ooyodo. The secretary ship hadn't suspected anything and filled out the forms in a daze, filing everything while Hoppo cutely vibrated on the spot. Once Ooyodo was done, Hoppo ran from the office with the filled out forms and returned to the science girls.

Akashi smiled at the little Abyssal. "Thank you so much, Hoppo-chan," she said. "And, as we promised, here are 12 Reppus. As Christmas is soon, here are some Jets, too."

Hoppo carefully inspected the aircraft before giving a very professional nod. [Everything is in order,] she said gravely. [Thank you.]

Akashi and Yuubari grinned and ran to their rooms. They needed to pack fast and catch the next flight to Frankfurt and from there Hamburg if they wanted to get there in time. Graf Spee had promised someone would be there, waiting for them.

In Wilhelmshaven the preparations for New Year's Eve were in full swing. Admiral Hartmann had brought his Katyusha to the base, to the awe of many of the girls.

He was a bit surprised when several foreign shipgirls came to the base, but as he knew many of them personally he saw no problem with granting them entrance and lodging.

South Dakota, Yuubari and Akashi took one look at the Katyusha and got stars in their eyes. "Admiral, how big are the rockets you can fire with it?" Yuubari wanted to know.

Hartmann scowled. "I had to build it so it can safely fire freely available German fireworks, which have limits in size and yield," he admitted. "So, on the small side, unfortunately."

The three girls gave a big pout.

"Can't we improve it and make our own?" Campbeltown wanted to know, startling the others when she popped up out of nowhere.

Hartmann rubbed his chin. "Hm, I did do that in my youth. I don't see why not."

The next days saw quite a bit of heavy construction. The Katyusha was made the centerpiece of a launching platform for thousands of rockets. Yuubari, Akashi and Campbeltown worked together on creating new and exotic effects. And Graf Spee had an idea. Several freighters worth of black powder were unloaded and processed.

With quite a bit reluctance, the pocket battleship went to Admiral Hartmann, who was currently busy welding another launch tube to a launch array. "Admiral," she began.

Hartmann looked up, lifting his welding mask. "Yes?" he asked.

Graf Spee fidgeted a bit. "I was reading up on bombs and and I was wondering... could we use a big bomb as firework, too?"

Hartmann sat down to consider it. A minute later, he pulled out his phone to call the SCIENCE! girls in.

The girls listened to the proposal. Finally, South Dakota spoke up. "We'd have to detonate it out at sea so we don't have to deal with falling debris, but we can definitely create colored fireballs with bombs. We'll need MOABs for that, though, and a lot of chemicals. Also, we need something launch them. A big cannon would be perfect," she laid out.

Hartmann grinned. "Don't worry, I know some guys. Make a list with everything you'll need," he stated. "We'll have a firework for the ages."

A week later, five ships stopped in harbor. The first was a US Navy supply ship bringing a load of 200 MOABs to the base. Enough firepower to level a city. No one had really asked why Hartmann needed them, they had simply delivered. The other four ships unloaded eight Schwerer Gustav type railroad guns that had been confiscated during several stunts and socked away in some far-off corner of Germany.

South Dakota inspected the guns with the help of several U-boats and found them fitting. She'd have to rewire the bombs, but she would've had to do it anyway, so it wasn't a problem.

On Christmas Admiral Hartmann gave every girl on base a present: a Zippo lighter with their ship form and name engraved on it. A small card read "For good use on New Year's Eve". A bottle of ligroine was included, so they could refill their lighters.

The days leading up to New Year's Eve were filled with anticipation. The last rockets were finished, the launch arrays positioned to shoot in the direction of the sea and the railroad guns made some testing shots.

When everything was ready, the waiting game began. The mess prepared hundreds of kilos of potato salad, egg salad, flavored breads, sausages, Prague Ham, noodle salads and other cold snack dishes.

Finally, New Year's Eve dawned. Games were played, the base cinema ran a Star Trek marathon and finally, at 11:00 Admiral Hartmann and hundreds of girls watched Dinner for One.

Afterwards, the girls left the warm building. Hip flasks filled with liquid warmth were common and the girls basically waited for midnight, accompanied by the soldiers on base and a lot of relatives of said soldiers.

Close to midnight, the ten supply U-boats made rounds, handing everyone save some really young children a glass of sparkling white wine.

When the clock struck midnight, there was a mighty roar of cheers, good wishes and hugs, even some kisses.

Then, Admiral Hartmann took command. "Man the cannons!" he bellowed, leading to many girls running to their assigned posts.

He waited, while the first larger fireworks in Wilhelmshaven shot into the sky.

With a large, shit-eating grin he brought down his hand. "Fire!" he bellowed and all hell broke loose.

With a deafening roar the Gustavs spat their heavy ordinance, creating massive fireballs in the skies.

The rocket launchers spat hundreds of smaller rockets each minute, creating flowers of fire in the night sky. For close to two hours, the night sky over the north sea was an inferno of firework.

Finally, the last railgun fell silent, the last rocket left the launchers and the firework was over.

Campbeltown was positively glowing with happiness. "So much fire. So many explosions. I have seen heaven," she sighed dreamily, grabbing U-300 and giving her a deep kiss.

All around her people cheered for the awesome display of firepower, treasuring a memory that would likely be the stuff of legends to come.


	281. Rule 925

**Rule 925. To the shipgirls who have been invited to Munich, that invitation is cancelled harder than the P1000 Ratte.  
**  
*BOOM!*

South Dakota didn't even flinch as a muffled explosion sounded from the reinforced room she and Phoenix had for that exact purpose. This was, after all, a rather everyday occurence for the pyromaniac light cruiser. Sure enough, a few minutes later the door opened, letting out a scorched, soot-blackened Phoenix and a lot of smoke.

"How'd it go?" South Dakota asked, not looking up from her work.

"Well, the formula works," Phoenix reported, hacking out a lungful of soot. "Now I just need to stabilize it. I think I can get 5% more thrust on a per-weight basis."

That prompted South Dakota to look up and whistle appreciatively. 5% more thrust might not sound like much, but that was a lot of extra thrust for the world's vast array of rocket-propelled weapons. "Nice," she replied. "Oh, by the way, you got a letter today from Munich."

Phoenix frowned and pulled out her phone to-

"Oh, no, snail mail." South Dakota held up the envelope, postage and all. "Yeah, I know."

"Who in the world is sending me _physical letters_ from Munich?" Phoenix muttered as she took the letter and tore open the envelope. Holding it up, she began to read. Almost immediately, her eyes widened, and a massive grin spread over her face as she went through the letter.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense," South Dakota drawled. "What's it say?"

"Ohmygod I've been invited to the Otto Hahn Institute in Munich!" Phoenix squealed.

The battleship raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"The world's foremost institution in figuring out how to make things blow up!"

South Dakota pondered that for a second. "You'll fit right in."

"I know!" Phoenix eagerly agreed before running out the door. "I'm gonna go talk to the Admiral about some leave!"

~o~

"Vanguard! Mail for you!"

King George V studiously ignored the sheep skeleton the younger battleship was liberally coating with... something. Better for her sanity that way.

"Oh, wow, I didn't know we still had this!" Vanguard said as she took the letter and opened it. "I wonder who this is from..."

The other battleship began to sweat as Vanguard read through the letter and an expression of childlike glee spread across her face.

"I've been invited to the Otto Hahn Institute!" she squealed, and before King George V could react, she bolted out the door, heading for the Admiral's office.

The fast battleship simply stared at the open door for several minutes before slumping forward and groaning. "Fuck it, I'm getting drunk tonight," she groaned.

~o~

"Stupid Admiral..." Yuubari muttered darkly as she sat in her room, where she'd been confined after Naka had blown open her "Fuck the world" button. "It wasn't even done yet! It would have been my greatest project!" She sighed, and slumped back onto her bed. "Maybe Naka was right. Maybe I do have a condition."

Her increasingly morose thoughts were interrupted by something sliding under her door. It was a letter, and Yuubari, hoping to take her mind off everything that had happened over the last few days, grabbed and opened it instead of chucking it into the trash with the rest of the mail she usually got. No, she did not want another half-dozen credit cards, thank you very much.

This was no credit card offer. It was, in fact, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of hers to visit the Otto Hahn Institute. All the researchers there seemed delightfully insane. There was only one slight problem.

"I'm going to regret this, but..." Yuubari sighed and pulled out her phone, dialing a number. "Iku? I need you to distract everyone on base. ... Yes. ... Fine. ... Okay, no, I draw the line there. ... Okay, thank you. Bye." The light cruiser grimaced at the price. Damn that lewdmarine and her perverted tendencies! Still, though, it would be an interesting challenge...

*THUNK!*

"No more distractions," Yuubari growled, lowering the shattered remains of her desk lamp from where she'd smashed it against her head. "I've only got a tight window, and I need to prepare."

~o~

Lutzow sighed as she lowered the unconscious forms of Yuubari and Phoenix to the ground. No way were these maniacs getting to Munich! Not if she could help it!

A thundering crash sounded out as Vanguard smashed Bismarck through another building, and the armored cruiser shuddered. On the other hand, tangling with a battleship was always something best avoided, especially a battleship that could take on Bismarck and hold her own.

"Where's Graf when you need her?" Lutzow muttered to herself.


	282. Rule 930

**Rule 930. Stop trying to convince newly summoned shipgirls that all German shipgirls are depressed, anti-social and efficient.  
**  
"Alright, Swiftsure," HMS Uganda said to the newly summoned light cruiser as they sat in a Portsmouth tea shop. "One last thing before we turn you loose. Since you're going to be operating on the Atlantic sea lanes, sooner or later - probably sooner - you're going to meet the Germans."

Swiftsure nodded jerkily, still unused to the idea of the Germans as allies.

"Okay, here's the thing about Germans: they're all depressed, anti-social, highly efficient little worker bees. They're almost as bad as the Japanese in that regard. So when you meet one of them, you should-"

"Hi, Uganda!"

Swiftsure jerked back in shock as a gray-clad blonde came out of nowhere and latched onto her mentor, who for her part just looked resigned to her fate.

"Prinz... what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I was on convoy duty, but my boilers were acting up again so Admiral Hartmann sent me here to get fixed up before heading back to Germany!"

Swiftsure's eyes widened even further as she realized that this had to be the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. She was... nothing at all like Uganda had made Germans out to be. Not only was Uganda coming off as the antisocial one, she could practically feel herself becoming happier at the sun-like joy rolling off the German cruiser in waves.

"Please let go of me," Uganda sighed.

"Sure!" Prinz Eugen chirped, turning around and then brightening at the sight of Swiftsure. "Oh! You must be the new cruiser they just summoned! Pleased to meet you!"

"L-Likewise," Swiftsure managed to stammer out. "How are you so... cheerful?"

Prinz Eugen blinked, then sighed and turned an admonishing look on Uganda. "Were you peddling national stereotypes again?"

Uganda's face promptly scrunched up and she looked away from the other shipgirl. "No."

"You liar," the German heavy cruiser giggled. "But yeah, it's just a stereotype. We're not all like that."

The door opened again, this time admitting a white-clad blonde in black stockings, black bags under her eyes and a steaming thermos in one hand.

"Aw, shoot, this is a tea shop," Graf Zeppelin groaned.

"Graf, what are you doing here?" Prinz sighed. "You're supposed to be at the docks! Half an hour ago!"

"Too sleepy, need coffee," the carrier replied, before turning around and shuffling out the door, zombie-style. "Gonna go find some."

"Use Yelp you stubborn twit!" Prinz called out after her. "I swear, we need to do something about that coffee addiction of hers. Where were we?"

"Um, demonstrating how Uganda's stereotype of Germans is completely and utterly wrong?" Swiftsure ventured.

"Right, that!" Eugen said. " _Prussians_ are like that. The rest of Germany just shakes their heads and humors them."

"Prussia's gone, Eugen," Uganda pointed out.

"You know what I mean!"


	283. Rule 931

**Rule 931. USS Iowa is to return that Cruise Missile to the Air Force.  
**  
"WHY DOESN'T IT FUCKING WORK?!"

Missouri and Wisconsin exchanged glances, and quickly poked their heads into their eldest sister's room. The battleship was sitting cross-legged, steam visibly puffing from her head, and staring at a-

"That is a cruise missile," Wisconsin deadpanned.

"Yes," Missouri agreed. "Looks an AGM-158, or possibly an RGM-158."

Wisconsin blinked, and tapped her chin. "Isn't that an Air Force missile?"

"The Navy uses it for antiship work," Missouri replied. "Which begs the question of which version it is she's taken."

Any response was cut off by several of Iowa's fairies popping up from behind the missile and jabbering away.

"DON'T GIVE ME THAT 'IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!' BULLSHIT, YOU LITTLE SHITSTAINS!" Iowa roared. "ALL I WANT TO FUCKING HEAR IS 'IT WILL TAKE X DAYS TO FIT IT TO YOUR RIGGING'! UNTIL THEN, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO WHAT YOU'RE FUCKING TOLD!"

"Ooooohhhh... she wants her Tomahawks," Wisconsin said.

"Well, I believe I've heard enough," Missouri stated, straightening and rapping her knuckles on the door frame.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU-! Oh, hey, Mo."

"Don't call me that," Missouri reflexively responded. "More importantly, where did you get that cruise missile?"

"This?" Iowa glanced at the polished white frame. "I bribed one of the subs to nick it from a Chair Force base."

Missouri hummed thoughtfully before nodding. "I see. And I take it you were trying to attach it to your rigging like your Tomahawks?"

"Yeah, but these little cocksuckers-" And here she glared at the fairies still clambering over the missile. "Say it's fucking impossible!"

"Yeah, that's cuz that isn't a Tomahawk," Wisconsin pointed out. "It's a VLS missile, not box launch."

"Exactly," Missouri continued. "Now, since it is an Air Force missile, I won't say anything to the Admiral, but do be sure you aren't caught with it."

"Fan-fucking-tastic," Iowa groaned.

Suddenly, New Jersey slid into the doorway, her rigging fully deployed with some very distinctive additions.

"'Sup, thundercunts! Check out my new missile battery!"

"Oh dear," Missouri sighed.

"Man, worst fucking timing ever," Wisconsin agreed.

"Wait, what?" New Jersey flinched as Iowa stood up and glared at her with eyes full of hate.

"I suggest you run, sister, before Iowa tackles you and rips those missiles out of your rigging," Missouri stated.

New Jersey gave a shaky nod and bolted, Iowa immediately following. Wisconsin watched them leave and then turned a curious glance on her sister.

"Y'know, the missile I get. Stick it to the Chair Force and all," she said. "But this? I'd expected you to stop it."

"For all that I think the regulations must be upheld, sometimes breaking them is the only way to properly register one's displeasure," Missouri stated primly. "I want those missiles, too, and maybe this will finally get Holloway off his ass and getting it done."

Wisconsin grinned. "That's the first time I've heard you swear. Ever. I kinda like it."

"Do not," Missouri replied, blushing slightly. "Assume it will be a regular occurrence. It will not."

"Riiiight."


	284. Rule 934

**By: Shaithan**

 **Rule 934. A special exception is made for reigning in Sammy B and Johnston, with those two it is destroyer-wrangling.**

Taffy 3 was known to all admirals as a bunch of troublemakers. They were good girls, but they tended to be extremely rambunctious, especially if New Jersey wasn't around for them to fawn over. Unfortunately, New Jersey couldn't be around all the time, as she often sortied with other battleships to dislodge heavily fortified installations. Which left Taffy 3 at home and bored. And as any admiral knew, bored destroyers tended to get... creative.

Admiral Holloway sighed deeply when yet another report landed on his desk, from a heavy cruiser that had complained about having to do destroyer-wrangling with Taffy 3. Hoel and Heermann were more sedate, but Johnston and Sammy B. tended to give even fast cruisers the run-around.

Another sigh escaped him when he read the report in detail. Canberra had embraced anything Australian like mad, including her current best friend, HMAS Australia. Unfortunately, it also included writing her reports in what she considered to be Australian slang. Wading through a swamp of blimeys, crikeys and bloodys, he got the gist of it. Further exposure to Taffy-3 would lead to her losing enough weight to become a light cruiser.

With a heavy groan, he put the report away. "Why?" he asked the uncaring heavens. "Why can't these girls listen to anyone other than New Jersey?" Slumping back in his chair, the Admiral let out a humorless chuckle. "Heh, HMS Exeter was right: with these girls, it truly is destroyer-wrangling."

Checking his calendar, his face fell even further. He would be the host of several foreign shipgirls soon, among them Tenryuu and DesDiv6, Glowworm, U-666 and Gneisenau. In other words, several of the girls that had made international news by participating in a Metal festival. Even worse, several of them seemed to have gotten along splendidly with Taffy 3.

He quickly gathered his secretary ship, Wright, to arrange some precautionary safety measures. Among other things, all vehicles were to be removed from the base, the patrols would be stepped up around anything that could explod or be used as a weapon, all movies, books, games and music that might 'inspire' the girls would be removed, and U-505 and Willy D. would be surreptitiously reassigned to Japan for a few weeks.

Wright looked up at her Admiral from the drafted memo. "Why are you battening down the hatches like this?" she wanted to know.

Holloway motioned for her to come closer. "Because this base will soon play host to a lot of girls we had to write a lot of rules about. I'm not taking any chances, especially after their stunts in Germany and Norfolk. Too many things that could go wrong, I need to be prepared."

Wright nodded. "I understand completely, Sir."

Holloway shuddered. "I just hope it is enough," he said quietly, Taffy 3 forgotten for the moment.

Three days later, a convoy arrived and with it the girls of infamy.

Holloway met them at the pier, trepidation strong within him.

Gneisenau saluted. "Gneisenau reporting for duty," she said, fully professional. "There were no incidents during our convoy escort."

Holloway nodded, grateful for small mercies.

Of course, the universe just had to prove right now that it hated it when things promised peace and quiet. An explosion and a flying, cackling Johnston on approach to the pier prompted Holloway to twitch.

Johnston impacted on the pier and pulled herself out of the small crater, either not noticing or not caring about her audience. "Adjust the angle 5 degrees upward and our RDDS is ready to rumble," she said excitedly into a small radio headset.

Holloway opened his mouth to say something, but Tenryuu had already stepped towards Johnston and tapped her on the shoulder.

Johnston twitched, turned around, and gave a big grin. "Tenryuu? When did you get here?" she wanted to know.

Tenryuu smirked. "Oh, just in time to see your super gracious impact," she said lightly.

Johnston grinned. "Oh, yeah. That. The system's not completely adjusted, but I think we have the problem figured out," she said proudly. "Come on, I'll show you!" With that, she grabbed the light cruiser and dragged her off behind her.

Holloway silently watched the scene, mentally cursing the sandy air the whole time.

Of course, things couldn't stay just bad. No, they had to get worse. DesDiv6 sprinted after their big sister, partially out of concern, partially out of curiosity. Holloway, sighing, turned to Wright. "Please see to getting our guests settled in. I have to engage in some destroyer-wrangling," he said gravely.

Wright nodded. "Of course, sir," she gave back.

Holloway ran after the destroyers, but didn't get far before another explosion occurred and Sammy B. flew through the air, hitting the bay. "It worked!" she crowed once she surfaced. "Guys, the RDDS is calibrated!" The destroyer escort quickly climbed out of the bay and ran back the way she'd been shot, a massive grin on her face. She even ignored Holloway, who felt a vague sense of guilt.

Finally, he found the girls, who were standing around a circus cannon, one that had been used to shoot human cannonballs. It had clearly been upgraded quite a bit, though. Tenryuu stood before the girls, smirking - not smiling! - proudly. She didn't smile, after all, no matter what her sister and Hibiki claimed.

"Now, that's a fine thing you built here," she said. "Why did you do it, though?"

Johnston shrugged. "Well, we were bored. Then we watched an old movie where a man was shot from such a cannon and we thought we could do the same. It's a Rapid Destroyer Deployment System. We hope we can upgrade it to even deploy battleships ."

Tenryuu was clearly listening to the technical details with only half an ear. Something else in that description had caught her attention "Oh? Why were you bored?" she asked, absently ruffling White Plains' hair.

It was Sammy B. who answered. "We haven't seen any action in over a week. Canberra had to leave the base and no one came forward to sortie with us. And New Jersey is part of the Heavy Fleet that's currently sieging Saint Helena, so she can't be there for us. It's so unfair. Any cruiser we sortie with claims to be tired after a short foray. We can't really do anything. 'Take it easy, Sammy.' 'Tomorrow's another day, Sammy.' 'Calm down, Sammy.' And so on." she groused, prompting Akatsuki to pull the smaller girl into a bear hug.

Tenryuu smirked. "Alright then. We'll make our own little fleet, with shipgirls that have endurance," she boasted, drawing her blade and pointing it into the sky. "We'll scour the seven seas, and we shall drive all our foes before us!"

The Taffies cheered loudly. "Hell yes, you're the best, Tenryuu!" Johnston cheered. The diminutive carrier White Plains promptly wrapped up the surprised light cruiser in a bear hug of her own, while Ikazuchi and Inazuma found themselves sandwiched in a group hug between Hoel and Heermann. Sammy B. grabbed Akatsuki and Johnston and hugged both.

Hibiki watched the whole scene with a faint smile. "Khorosho," she said quietly.

Admiral Holloway silently left. He'd ask for DesDiv6, Tenryuu and Taffy 3 later, when they had some time to get acquainted with each other. Now he also knew what the guilt had been about, he had completely forgotten the Taffies in his mad dash to prepare for the arrivals.

Silently he was grateful for Tenryuu. The look the Taffies had given her had been reserved for one other person before now, their Big Sister New Jersey. He was cautiously optimistic.


	285. Rule 938

**By: Sheo Darren**

 **Rule 938: Cabot is no longer allowed to execute the Daedalus Attack**

 **Shortly After Epic Aquila Fail**

 _Rock of Gibraltar_  
Gibraltar, Gibraltar Straits

"Amateurs!"

Perched atop the Rock of Gibraltar, a bunch of Jet-Assisted Take-Off rockets strapped to her back and limbs, the devil-may-care Cabot struck a pose. Above her head flew several of her fairy-piloted Harrier jump jets, equipped with high-speed cameras to immortalize this moment.

"This is how you do it!" she proclaimed to her gathered audience.

"¡No, Dedalo, no!" wailed the panicking ship-girls of the Spanish Navy, who had united once more to try dissuading the reckless light carrier loaned to their fleet.

"Yes, Daedalus, yes!" urged the various British ship-girls and Installation types live-streaming & video-taping the foolhardy stunt for the sake of posterity and the issuance of future Darwin Awards (which were now personally awarded by Seaport Princess as part of the Enemy Waters Fleet's effective propaganda).

Their lone American cousin palmed her face. "I've got my job laid out for me," sighed landing craft repair ship USS _Daedalus_ as Cabot triggered her makeshift propulsion system with a shriek of "¡Ándale!" She then added: "At least this cannot get worse..."

Of course, that was the moment the Abyssals chose to attack.

~o~

[I stand... unbroken... unbowed...]

The mighty Rock Fortress Princess arose from the blue depths of the Strait of Gibraltar. Bombers launched from her airstrip and lesser Abyssals sortied from her harbor. Today was the day she would wipe out the humans & ship-girls keeping her from the peninsula home that bore her rightful name!

The stirring sound of orchestral music got her to look up in time to witness a happily-shrieking, sunglasses-wearing _Independence_ class fast carrier coming her way.

" **DAEDALUS ATTACK!** " Cabot screamed as her rocket punch caved in the high right cheekbone of the startled Rock Fortress Princess.

~o~

 **Live-streaming time of** ** _Dedalo_** **Attack** **viral video**  
 _Yokosuka Naval Base_

Unimaginable fury drove Yuubari to flip the table. "It's **MACROSS** Attack!" the light cruiser raged at the monitor. "MA-KU-RO-SU! We did that **first**!"

"Damn you, Harmony Gold," vowed Akashi as her gloved hands bent a super heavy duty wrench in half. "This hideous Macekre will not go unpunished..."

The thankfully undamaged screen showed the scorched but grinning Cabot being fawned upon by the beaten-up & dere-dere Rock Fortress Princess, who had been Culture Shocked into Befriended/Love At First Punch Status, while in the background the British ship-girls were glumly paying restitution to the relieved Spanish ship-girls.

~o~

"See!" Yamashiro felt so good to be vindicated, even if it was at the expense of her beloved Fusou-neesama. "If Cabot has a rocket punch, then so does Mississippi!"

~o~

 **Later**  
 _Joint Chiefs of Staff Office_

"So," proposed Air Force General Jack O'Neill (single 'l', possesses a sense of humor) to the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I'm thinking we should name the first of the _BC-304_ class anti-Abyssal battlecruisers USS _Daedalus_..."

 **AN: the first of what would become many appearances for th beleaguered Rock Fortress Princess.**


	286. Rule 940

**Rule 940. Why did you bunch make a cloning machine... no, wait, we don't want to know how and why. Just get rid of the thing.  
**  
It has been said before, but is worth saying again: never, _ever_ let a shipgirl get bored. _Especially_ a known troublemaker. That's just asking to have the entire base flooded with whipped cream and a hundred PT imps licking it all off.

Long story.

In the current case of Yuubari, this oversight was far more understandable. Buried nukes in Yellowstone is very much panic-worthy, and so Admiral Goto knee-jerked his reaction and confined her to her quarters indefinitely while he and the Americans scrambled to fix the problem. No time in the lab, no sortieing, all leave cancelled, the works. And, contrary to popular belief, there's only so much internet you can do before getting tired of it. Which is why she was lying on her bed tossing stapled packets containing various project ideas aside.

"Can't do... can't do... would just piss off the Admiral again... can't do... can't do... Oh!" She sat up, her face brightening, as she chanced upon a particularly old document. "Of course, the cloning machine! I can do that right here!"

Grinning, Yuubari hopped down from her bed and retrieved a large cardboard box she'd stashed away in her closet for just this eventuality. Joining it was a box of tools she'd squirreled away under her bed, and then she got to work.

A couple of hours' worth of work later, Yuubari sighed and sat back, admiring her handiwork. The box... still looked like a cardboard box, but the light cruiser knew that this was no longer a mere cardboard box. Still, best to test it on something besides herself first. Grabbing her pillow, she slid it under the box and tapped the "this side up" marker.

*BOINK!*

Yuubari lifted up the box again to find two pillows, and grinned. Success! She slid herself under the box, and tapped the same spot from the other side.

*BOINK!*

Yuubari blinked, and lifted up the cardboard box, taking a moment to stare at herself.

"Success!" she whooped.

"Of course," her other self said smugly. "We _are_ a genius, after all."

The two Yuubaris kneeled awkwardly in front of each other before one of them spoke up. "So, uh, what now?"

"Well, I could sneak out and get us some ice cream," one of them stated. "And then maybe pop into our workshop to grab some tools for another project."

Yuubari raised an eyebrow. "And why do _you_ get to do that while I sit here bored in this room?"

Yuubari rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll get the ice cream, and when I get back you can go get the tools from the workshop. Happy?"

She nodded.

~o~

Akashi groaned in frustration as she shoved some boxes aside. Dammit, where was that cementer? Hopefully Yuubari hadn't taken it; her workshop was locked up tight, and she _technically_ wasn't supposed to open it. But that cementer wasn't going to find itself, and she needed it to patch up Mutsu's turrets. That battleship was paranoid about turret penetrations, but considering what had happened to her original ship self the repair ship didn't blame her.

Finally, Akashi gave up the search as a lost cause. It had to be in Yuubari's workshop.

 _'Sorry, Admiral,'_ she thought, pulling a key she'd forged out of her pocket and unlocking the door. To her surprise, there was Yuubari, loading up a pack of tools into a large canvas sack.

"Oh, hey Akashi," the light cruiser casually greeted.

"Yuubari..." the repair ship groaned, hand meeting face. "You're supposed to be in your room."

"I am."

Akashi looked askance at the light cruiser. "But you're _here._ "

"Yup."

Akashi felt her mouth hang open, and she remained that way for several seconds before she shook her head.

"You know what? I'm not even gonna ask," she decided. "Where did you put that cementer you borrowed a while back?"

"Right next to the vice," Yuubari replied, waving her hand in the vague direction. "Sorry about that, I forgot I had it."

Akashi nodded and walked over to retrieve the device before beating a hasty retreat. Some things man and ship were just not mean to know.

~o~

"Where is it, where is it, where is it..." Yuubari feverishly muttered to herself as she threw items out of her closet.

"This is ridiculous!" Yuubari shouted as she wrenched up one of the floorboards. "How do you _lose_ a cardboard box that big!"

"Well, it can't have just stood up and walked away!" Yuubari shouted back. "And the only other explanation is that someone took it and-!"

The two Yuubaris froze, then sent a panic-stricken look at each other.

"Y-You don't think..." Yuubari whimpered.

Given a straight line like that, the universe couldn't help but oblige. Both Yuubaris heard a veritable stampede out in the hall, and they both poked their heads out to see a steady stream of Hoppo-chans running by.

"... She wanted another Zero, didn't she," Yuubari stated.

"Looks like."

"I wonder where Nagato is."

A chorus of "Mama!"s sounded out from the front of the line, followed by a fluffy *THWUMP!*

"So... many... Hoppo-chans... drowning in... Hoppos..."

Yuubari and Yuubari glanced at each other. "Okay, let's find the damn thing and destroy it before this gets even more out of hand."

"Agreed."


	287. Rule 952

**Rule 952. To the perpetrator who thought that putting false blood all over the collapsed and drunken bodies of the battleships, planted fake weapons all over their place, drew their body outlines while they are at it and put a police line there to make it look like an authentic crime scene is a funny and harmless joke, we would like you to know that their sister ships and friends are looking for you with an intent to do quite violent and unspeakable things with your body. They will be joined by your victims as well as soon as they are no longer drunk.  
**  
"Musashi..." Iowa groaned, glaring daggers at the Japanese battleship. "I thought I fucking said this was a goddamn _two-person_ pub crawl!"

Musashi glanced behind her to where Kongo, Mutsu, and a disapproving Kirishima were standing. "Hey, the more the merrier!" she replied. "And Kirishima's here to help keep us out of trouble so the Admiralty doesn't veto another one of these. Besides, you're not exactly alone, either."

Iowa glanced back to where California, New Jersey, and Idaho were happily chatting away with each other. "Well, fuck. Can't argue with that." She turned back to Musashi, and grinned. "So. Time to get fucked up?"

"Time to get fucked up," came the reply.

~o~

Johnston, Hoel, Heermann, and Samuel B. Roberts looked over the drunken, insensate forms of the eight battleships. Sadly, they were not sprawled into one big cuddlepile - that would have been the perfect blackmail - but looking over their unconscious forms and disheveled clothing was giving the destroyers _ideas_.

Suprisingly, it was Hoel who spoke up first.

"Alright, I need water, flour, corn syrup, blue, red, and green food dye, masking tape, police tape, and all the blunt and bladed weapons you can get your hands on," she ordered.

Her fellow Taffy 3 members shared quizzical glances. "What d'you need all that for?" Johnston asked.

"You'll see," Hoel said, rubbing her hands together and grinning. "This is gonna be _fun._ "

~o~

"IYAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Hoel's scream echoed throughout San Diego. Had it been any of the other Taffies, it would have been met with skepticism. With Hoel, it was a question of who was closest.

In this case, the first ones on the scene were the rather trigger-happy Helena and Salt Lake City.

"Oh my God..." the latter breathed.

It was a scene of carnage. Blood was splattered on every surface, including on the eight unmoving forms of the battleships lying on the floor. Police tape cut off a good three-quarters of the room, and every body was marked in an outline of masking tape. And scattered around the room were the dented, bent forms of a variety of blunt instruments: pipes, baseball bats, splintered two-by-fours, steel girders.

"W-W-W-W-W-W-What happened?!" Salt Lake City shrieked, even as Helena retched behind her.

"I-I don't know!" Hoel wailed. "I-I just found them like this!"

"Nobody touch anything!" Ingham shouted as she slid into the room. "Now what do we- Oh dear God." The cutter blanched at the scene. "Jesus fucking Christ, what could have-" She paused, and sniffed the air. "Wait a minute. This doesn't smell like blood, it smells like-"

Suddenly, the prone form of New Jersey groaned and rolled over.

"Corn syrup," Ingham finished, turning a glare on Hoel. "Well played. I didn't know you did pranks like your sisters."

"Eheheheheheheh," Hoel nervously chuckled. "Well, it was too good an opportunity to pass up."

Ingham sighed. "We'll talk about this later. I suppose we should all be glad this was exposed before someone... over..." The cutter blanched again as she realized that Helena and Salt Lake City were gone. "Oh, motherfucker."

~o~

Johnston, Samuel B. Roberts, and Heermann peered out over the assembled crowd of pissed-off shipgirls from their position in the rafters. Tied up, gagged, and hanging from one of the beams behind them were Salt Lake City and Helena.

"Jesus, if that's the punishment for just overreacting..." Johnston didn't finish the statement. She didn't need to.

The angry shouting rose to a crescendo - and then Admiral Goto stepped out onto a conveniently nearby stage, and everything went quiet.

"Aw, fuck," Sammy B. said.

"I will say this only once!" he announced in his patented "Admiral's voice". "Taffy. 3. Is. Mine. Understood?"

At the chorus of nods from the assembled shipgirls, Heermann made her decision.

"Right, think the Argentinians have a need for a few extra tin cans?"


	288. Rule 953

**Rule 953. Please do not try to "Get Goeben in touch with her German heritage". We like her mellow, okay?  
**  
"I'm telling you, this is a bad idea," Lorraine pleaded with her sister.

"Sorry, but this is a request from Bismarck herself," Provence replied. "Besides, I kinda do want to see what Goeben is like as a German. We were still under construction when she made that run to Turkey."

"It's Yavuz," Lorraine instinctively corrected. "And how _are_ you going to get her in touch with her German heritage?"

"With this!" Provence announced, reaching into her rigging and pulling out-

"A pickelhaube," the other battleship deadpanned. "You're going to get her in touch with her German heritage by giving her a _pickelhaube_."

"Oh, come on, give me some credit," Provence grumbled. "This is just the first step. Gotta take this slow, you know?"

"Uh, are you guys gonna go in?"

The two battleships glanced at the diminutive form of HMAS Stuart behind them. "Uh, yeah, we will," Provence decided, knocking on the door.

"Come in, come in!"

Provence, Lorraine, and Stuart walked in, Yavuz coming up to them with a steaming dish of musakka in one hand. "Oh, Lorraine, Provence! Want some lunch? I also have grilled artichoke!"

The two battleships warily eyed the stewed combination of green peppers, onion, and eggplant. "Pass, thank you," Provence replied, holding up the pickelhaube. "But we've got a present for you."

Yavuz placed the dish down and picked up the helmet, looking it over. Humming thoughtfully, she put it on her head - and then a remarkable transformation happened. Her tanned skin lightened, her bleached hair darkened to it's previous blonde, and her easy smile hardened into a determined scowl. And then smile returned, far more cruel.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" she sneered in German. "A couple of baguette battleships, ready to get their asses kicked. Well, I have only one thing to say."

Yavuz - no, Goeben - loomed over the two Frenchmen, her smile wider than ever and her eyes solid white.

"Guten tag."

~o~

"N-Now, Bretagne, we all know how you feel," Courbet pleaded with her younger cousin. "B-But-"

"Seriously, calm your tits and wait for Richelieu to get back," Algerie cut in.

The heavy cruiser still flinched when Bretagne whirled back to glare at her. "Bitch, my tits are calm," she growled. "The left one is called Siddhartha Buddha and the left one is Vardhamana Mahavira, and together they are lactating a veritable _font_ of peace and understanding. It is the _rest_ of me that is pissed. She has my sisters and is using them to taunt us!"

Indeed, out on the water Yavuz - no, Goeben - was carrying the insensate forms of Bretagne's sisters by their hair, their faces scribbled on in permanent marker. Every so often she stopped her back and forth steaming to shout another insult.

"We do that to the Brits all the time," Suffren pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's the _Brits_! We're supposed to do that!"

"Oh, wait, never mind, there's Richelieu with-" Duquesne started, before jerking in shock. "Is that Bismarck?!"

The French shipgirls watched as Bismarck made short work of Goeben. As badass as the old battlecruiser was, taking down a modern fast battleship like Bismarck or Richelieu was quite different from taking down a pair of dreadnoughts of her own vintage.

~o~

Waking came slowly to Yavuz, largely due to the throbbing pain in her skull.

"W-What...?" she croaked out.

A blonde-haired busty form leaned into her field of view. "Water?" Bismarck offered.

Yavuz nodded and opened her mouth, letting the water flow in. "W-What happened?" she got out, her voice still rusty but otherwise much more legible.

Bismarck's blurry form grimaced. "You had... some sort of psychotic break. You turned German again, started talking about 'lebensraum' and 'fucking baguettes'. You then beat up Provence and Lorraine, and paraded their unconscious bodies in front of Toulon, shouting insults and playing the Imperial March the whole time."

Yavuz groaned. "Goddamn I was a stupid kid... How'd you stop me?"

"A good smack upside the head usually resets personalities," Bismarck answered. "And what do you mean, 'a stupid kid'?"

"That attitude I had when I went nuts?" Yavuz replied. "That was me when I was built. It took getting sold to the Ottomans and getting my ass kicked by the Russians a couple of times to disabuse me of that attitude."

Bismarck mulled that over. "I think I like Yavuz more than Goeben."

"You and me both."


	289. Rule 957

**Rule 957: Iku is banned from helping out in ASW practice unless** ** _specifically asked_** **to.  
**  
When she surfaced in the harbor of Yokosuka after a long patrol, Iku was greeted with the odd sight of most of the off-duty destroyers awkwardly milling about on the water.

"Hey, what's going on?" she asked, sailing up to the gathered destroyers.

"Well, we're here for ASW classes, poi," Yuudachi replied. "But George and Haida aren't here, poi."

"Yeah, it's weird, because they're usually pretty punctual," Shigure added.

Iku hummed thoughtfully. That was a good point; where in the world were those two?

~o~

Haida lounged on a soft downy bed, clad in diaphanous silk and attended by three muscular men clad only in loincloths. A fourth entered the room, carrying a bundle of grapes.

"I love cargo cults," the destroyer sighed as said attendant began plucking grapes to feed her.

"Tell me about it," George groaned as another attendant massaged her bare back. "I could get used to this."

~o~

Meh, whatever. They'd show up. In the meantime...

"Well, why don't I give you a live target?" she offered.

Almost immediately, she was inundated by suspicious glares from the gathered destroyers.

"No," they chorused pretty much immediately.

"But-!"

"We saw how Haida knocked you around in the last practice," Asagumo pointed out. "You wouldn't offer this unless you had an ulterior motive!"

"Fine, fine, I know when I'm not wanted," Iku said airily before turning around and steaming away. The assembled destroyers waited for her to vanish from sight before going back to awkwardly milling about.

"So... what now, poi?" Yuudachi asked after a few minutes.

"ACK!"

"That's not an answer, poi," Yuudachi said to Murasame.

"Something groped me!" the other destroyer shot back.

Everyone froze.

"I'm gonna kill Iku!" Shiranui howled.

"We only have paint in our Squids and depth charges!" Yukikaze wailed.

"We can try anyway!"

~o~

Jintsuu sighed as she looked over the red-faced, bedraggled destroyers gathered before her, and the spotless Iku with her smug grin.

"Iku, next time, make sure you're actually invited to ASW practice," the light cruiser stated. "The only reason I'm not having you punished is because Haida and George would murder me if I didn't let them do it."

The blood draining from the submarine's face was quite gratifying.

"Um, where are they, anyway?" Nenohi asked.

Before Jintsuu could answer, the sound of pounding drums began to waft over the waves. All eyes turned out to sea, where the largest outrigger canoe any of them had ever seen was sailing up to them. Lining the outriggers were drummers pounding away, and in the center, right in front of the mast, was a long, low couch containing a lounging George and Haida. And above them-

"Th-That's the Coma Doof Warrior..." someone breathed.

Indeed, on a raised platform above the two shipgirls was a man in a kilt, jamming away on an electric guitar. He was actually quite good. No fire from the neck, sadly.

As the canoe approached the inner harbor and the stunned shipgirls within, a man dressed in colorful silks and a very large and ornate hat stepped up to the front. He stayed there as the ship slowed down - and then he bowed an even ninety degrees at the waist.

"Goddesses! We greet you in the name of the Great Maker!" he announced, his fellow crewmates aside from the guitarist bowing as well.

Faced with this scene, Jintsuu said the only thing she could.

"What."

 **AN: Okay, this one might have gotten a little out of hand.**


	290. Rule 961

**By: Jackie2734**

 **Rule 961. No further attempts to clone shipgirls shall be made.**

 **Deep Inside a Forgotten Tunnel System**

South Dakota went over the equipment she had gathered one more time.

"Let's see here," she began. "600 units of Special Treatment Steel, 90 units of Bauxite, 90 units of ammunition, and 750 units of fuel-"

~o~

 **Iwo Jima Forward Base  
Earlier That Day**

"Admiral," Enterprise stated. "We've found a major discrepancy in our strategic stores of summoning resources."

Admiral Williams sighed, all hopes of a shenaniganless day going out the window. "How bad is it."

"According to the inventory report," Big E began. "The amount missing would be enough to either summon at least one heavy cruiser or three destroyers."

Williams' eyes widened in dread. "This is serious, E. That's a not-insignificant amount of shipgirl. Do we have any idea who could have done it?"

Enterprise was silent for a moment before she admitted, "The guards say that they caught South Dakota lurking around the warehouses several times over the past week."

"Shit, what is that girl up to now," the Admiral muttered to himself. "Any idea where she is?"

Enterprise shook her head. "I'm sorry, sir. Three days ago, she was approved for a week long leave. Nobody's seen hide nor hair of her since. The only thing we know is that she hasn't left the island."

"Goddammit," Williams snapped. "Get every available shipgirl and start searching for her. We need to find that crazy battleship IMMEDIATELY!"

"Sir?" the normally stoic carrier said, taking an unsteady step back. She had never once heard the Admiral yell like that before.

"That girl's gone too far this time, E," Williams stated, visibly reigning in his anger. "This isn't just another one of her crazy shenanigans. Dakota has stolen a large amount of military resources and gone into hiding, quite possibly to perform some crazy experiment that she knew I wouldn't approve of."

Enterprise's eyes widened as the realization of just how much trouble her eccentric friend was in dawned on her. "How do you know you wouldn't have approved?" she asked.

The Admiral sighed. "Because if I would have, she'd have come straight to me."

~o~

 **Back at Dakota's Secret Lair**

"-Check." She scribbled on a paper and moved along.

"Three industrial grade 3D Automated Forges, courtesy of the Los Angeles Naval Yards-"

~o~

 **Los Angeles Naval Yards**

Every head in the Yard turned as they heard their Chief Machinist scream at the top of his lungs.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY MACHINES!?"

~o~

 **Dakota's Lair**

"-Check."

"One engineering consultant familiar with the original product."

~o~

 **Fairy Officer's Club (Formally known as the Admiral's Daughter's Doll House)  
Earlier that week **

The cute little naval officer picked up a couple of thimbles of beer and walked over to his soon-to-be new friend.

"Hey Hey."

"Nano?"

"Hey Hey Hey."

"Nanooo, Desu Desu."

"Hey?"

"Desu Nano Desu Desu."

"Hey hey hey."

"Desu Nano Des-"

Unfortunately, this thrilling conversation was cut short by the roof suddenly disappearing, being replaced by a determined battleship.

"Hey fellas," she said. "Sorry to bug you like this, but I'm looking for someone."

Scanning the room, Dakota locked eyes with the Japanese Chief Engineer the American Fairy had been talking with.

"Ah," she said as she reached down and picked him up. "Just the fella I was looking for. I've got a project I'm working on that could really use your input."

"Hey!"

Looking down, the Battleship saw a fuming American Fairy glaring daggers at her. "Sorry, lieutenant," she told him. "But I've got to borrow your friend for a while. Don't worry, I'll bring him back when I'm done."

With that, she replaced the the roof of the club and took off.

The American fairy just shrugged at the loss of his friend and continued drinking his beer.

~o~

 **Dakota's Lair**

"-Check," she stated before turning to the engineering fairy. "So, what do you think of the final designs?"

Giving the schematics one final lookover, the Fairy turned towards Dakota and gave her a thumbs up. "Desu."

The battleship smiled. "Good to hear. Now, moving on. One thaumiatic flux capacitor-"

~o~

 **Somewhere in The Forgotten Mountains of Europe**

"Brother Martin!"

"High Wizard Brown? What's the problem?"

"Someone has stolen my Flux Capacitor!"

"That's terrible. How ever will you explore the streams of time without it?"

"It will be difficult, but it can be done. I'll just have to acquire some plutonium and a vehicle that can reach at least 88 miles per hour."

~o~

 **You should know where by now**

"-Check."

Dakota looked at the large cylinder she had hooked up to her machine, and as yet another purple lightning bolt lanced out of it, she hoped it'd be enough to regulate the sheer amount of raw mystical energy she would be drawing on to fuel the process.

"Alright, all that should be left is to provide the blueprint to base their bodies off of and we should be good be good to go."

Carefully, she pulled out a bag containing a single strand of long, blonde hair and placed it into a solution, where it quickly dissolved and was distributed evenly into the three holding tanks.

"Okay," she said enthusiastically. "We are good to go. Care to do the honor little buddy?"

A loud "Desu!" was the only reply as the tiny engineer flipped the activation switch with a comically large amount of effort, a sudden spray of purple lightning signalling the process had started.

 _"Beginning Synthesization Process,"_ a robotic voice stated. _"001% complete. 002% complete. 003% complete..."_

Dakota frowned. "This... might take a while."

"Desu," agreed the fairy.

~o~ **  
**

 **Meanwhile, on the other side of the island.**

Enterprise, New Jersey, Washington, and Arizona converged at their rendezvous point.

"Anything?" the Fleet Carrier asked.

The other three just shook their heads.

"Dammit," Jersey howled. "Where can that crazy ship be?!"

As if to answer her question, Enterprise's phone began ringing.

The carrier quickly answered it. "What is it, Harder?"

" _Yeah, I think I've found her_ ," replied the sub boy.

Enterprise stiffened. "Are you sure?"

 _"Well, a purple lightning bolt just shot out of the entrance to an old tunnel and nearly fried me,"_ Harder deadpanned. _"So, yeah, I'm pretty sure."  
_  
"Right, send us your coordinates and hold position until we get there," Enterprise ordered. "Do not engage alone. I repeat, do not engage alone."

 _"Yeah, because I really want to face a deranged battleship in confined quarters alone,"_ the sub snarked.

~o~

 **Dakota's Lair**

 _"084% complete. 085% complete. 086% complete..."  
_  
As the computerized voice droned on, Dakota couldn't help but smile at the progress of her project, which, to her great surprise, was coming along better than she could have ever hoped. There were minor deviations between the three subjects and the original, but none that were detrimental to them in any way, and if her readings were accurate, each one of them was forming its own unique spirit. All in all, it was turning out very well for something that should have been absolutely impossible.

Of course, as fate would have it, it was at that moment that the door behind her was kicked open.

Turning around, South Dakota found herself facing four very ticked off Capital Ships and a rather nervous looking sub behind them.

Smiling, Dakota got up to greet her friends. "Girls," she said. "I'm so glad you could make it here in time to witness my greatest achie-"

That was as far as she got before Jersey's fist slammed into her jaw, sending her sprawling across the floor.

"BB-57 USS South Dakota," Arizona stated flatly. "You are hereby placed under arrest for misappropriation of military resources, conduction of unlawful experimentation, and-" Arizona paused as she spotted the cowering form of a fairy that obviously wasn't one of Dakota's. "- Kidnapping essential military personnel."

Still too stunned to think Dakota didn't listen to the crimes she was being charged with. "You... You hit me?" she stated in disbelief. Slowly, she looked up at the group, only to find herself facing Jersey and Washington's main huns.

"Of course I hit you, you loon," Jersey snarled. "You've gone too far this time."

"Please, Dakota," Washington begged. "Come with us quietly and I'm sure we'll be able to sort this out."

A look of betrayal crossed Dakota's face as she realized that her fellow battleships would actually shoot her if she didn't comply. Slowly, she turned towards the only one of the four capital ships who hadn't spoken, the one whom she had known the longest.

"What about you, E?" Dakota pleaded. "What do have to say to me?"

Enterprise didn't respond. Instead, with horrified look on her face, she gazed at the machinery in Dakota's lab, and what they were in the process of creating.

"E?" Dakota said, her voice wavering slightly. "E, please say something."

Just as Enterprise was about to respond, she was interrupted by an electronic voice.

" _Synthesization process 095% complete._ "

"Arizona, Washington, New Jersey," Enterprise stated. "Detain USS South Dakota while I shut down this machine."

"WHAT?!" Ignoring the sound of 16" cannons loading, Dakota spun to face Enterprise as she walked towards the control console and began trying to figure out how to shut down the machine without causing an explosion. "You can't do that, E, not when they're so close to being finished!"

Enterprise paused for a second as she searched for a kill switch. "These things are abominations, Dakota. However you figured how to do this... it's just not right."

~o~

 **Yokosuka Naval Base Machine Shop**

"AH-CHOO!"

"AH-CHOO!"

"Bless you," Akashi said to the twin Yuubaris.

"Thanks," they said in unison, before one of them continued. "I think someone called us abominations of science again."

"I see," Akashi lied. "Hand me that spot welder, would you?"

"Here."

~o~

" _097% complete._ "

"E please," Dakota begged, trying to move to stop her friend even as she was slammed to the ground by Arizona. "You can't do this. They're _real_ shipgirls, with _real_ souls. If you shut down the machine now, you'll kill them!"

The carrier's hand hovered over the final button necessary to kill the entire system. "That may have been your intention, Dakota, but ambition can blind one to the flaws in their works. There are just too many things that are different with this process, too many things that are _wrong_. If those things finish, and they are anything other than shipgirls, it could create a threat greater than the Abyssals, and I cannot take that chance."

" _098% complete_."

"Please!" Dakota cried. "You have to believe me! You have to believe _in_ me. Believe that I would never do anything so dangerous unless I knew it would work. Because if you kill them and they were shipgirls, it won't be an act of war you can justify. It will be _murder_."

Enterprise hesitated, torn over what to do. It was her duty to her nation to stop any threat against it, but it was her obligation to her friend to trust in her abilities.

" _099% complete_."

"ENTERPRISE!" South Dakota screamed in desperation. "PLEASE!"

That tore it.

"D," Enterprise whispered. "I'm trusting you on this one."

Silently, she pulled her hand back.

" _Synthesization Process Complete_."

Dakota smiled; it was done.

Of course, it was then that the entire lab exploded.

~o~

 **Iwo Jima Forward Base  
5 Hours later**

Shimakaze sat on the side of the pier, playing catch with her Rensouhou-kuns. She really didn't have much to do at the moment. After all, you can only out race every other ship in the Japanese Navy so many times before it got boring.

"Hey, Shimakaze," came a voice from behind her. "How are you doing?"

Turning around, Shimakaze saw that it was that crazy American battleship everyone had been looking for earlier.

"Nothing," she replied. "What's it to you, slowpoke?"

"Oh," Dakota began in a singsong voice. "I just thought you'd like to meet a few new destroyers that were recently summoned."

Shimakaze looked past Dakota and saw three similarly dressed girls standing there, fidgeting nervously.

"So whose family are they a part of?" she asked with a bit of jealousy in her voice. "Fletcher, Fubuki, Akizuki?"

Dakota smiled. "Actually," she said before leaning in close and whispering in Shimikaze's ear. "They're yours."

~o~

 **Several Weeks Earlier**

Dakota was on her way to the target range when she heard someone crying. After searching for several minutes, she'd tracked the source of the crying to a back alley between warehouses. Peaking around the corned she spotted the strangest sight she'd ever seen.

Sitting there, hugging a Rensouhou-kun like an armored teddy bear, was a completely disheveled Shimikaze crying something in Japanese.

It took Dakota a second to translate what she was saying, but she got the gist of it.

" _... Stupid Fletchers, stupid Gearings, stupid jarheads who can't keep their mouths shut. Who needs sisters. anyway. Not me, not when I have my speed..._ "

She continued rambling, but it was mostly the same stuff in a different order.

Not wanting to embarrass the poor girl by letting her know she'd been overheard, Dakota stepped back around the corner and walked back to the main street.

Of course, that didn't mean that Dakota didn't want to help Shimakaze. In fact, even as she walked, her head began filling with ideas of how to help the poor girl. Good ideas, bad ideas, terrifying ideas, thrilling ideas, amazing ideas, dangerous ideas, revolutionary ideas: Dakota had hundreds of them in mere seconds, but eventually she decided on one. One that was so bad, it had to be good, one that was terrifyingly thrilling, amazingly dangerous, and absolutely revolutionary.

 _If she didn't have sisters back then, why can't we make some for her now?_

~o~

 **Back in the Present**

Shimakaze's eyes went wide as she stared at the other three girls, beginning to see the similarities between them and herself, similarities that only siblings could have. For what seemed like hours, all the four of them did was stare at each other until the silence was broke by Shimakaze herself.

"So," she started nervously. "Do you want to race?"

The other destroyers smiled and vigorously nodded their heads.

And in an instant, they were off.

As Dakota watched them disappear in clouds of dust, someone stepped up beside her.

"So, let me get this straight," Enterprise started. "You nearly ruined your entire military career, no, your entire _life_ , just so that girl could have sisters?"

All Dakota did was smile. "Scrap me, execute me, throw me in the brig, hell, you could feed me to the Abyssals for all I care," she stated. "It would have all been worth it to know that that girl will never be alone again."

Enterprise laughed. "You really are a big softy, aren't you?"

"Yeah~" Dakota admitted. "Just don't go telling everyone, okay?"


	291. Rule 965

**Rule 965: Attempting to weaponize Hiei's curry will not work. Don't try it.  
**  
The sound of a stamp hitting paper rang out through Admiral Goto's office.

"You're denying it?" Yuubari breathed, her face contracting into an angry glare. "You're _denying_ my proposal?! Is it because of my previous projects?! This is nothing like those! Hiei's curry is a proven-!"

"Let me stop you right there, Yuubari," Admiral Goto cut in. "The only reason I'm not approving this is because we tried it already. It didn't work."

That quelled any anger the light cruiser had. "Really? What went wrong?"

"Well..."

~o~

 _A younger Admiral Goto, joined by Kirishima and Akagi, peered through the rapidly fuzzing view of the camera in the kitchens. The tile counters were_ oozing _, and the metal surfaces were pitted and cracked. Finally, the camera feed cut out, not into static, but blackness._

 _"Well, now we know where Hiei got those chemical burns," Kirishima remarked._

 _Goto and Akagi both shuddered. That had not been a pretty sight, at least, once they had hauled her out of the room._

 _"So, how are we going to deploy this if it does... that?" Akagi wondered._

 _"Well, we need to..." Kirishima trailed off. "That is a very good question, actually."_

 _The trio awkwardly stood around until Akagi spoke up._

 _"Admiral, I have an idea."_

~o~

"You tore the room out, reinforced it, and carried out onto the water," Yuubari repeated.

"Yes. Luring Abyssals in was easy enough, we just had Kaga set up a grill," Goto continued.

"Okaaaaaaay... And how did that work? I mean, something must have gone wrong."

"Something did..."

~o~

 _Kaga hid behind the transplanted room, letting the smell of grilling meat draw in Abyssals, in this case a Ne-class heavy cruiser. The Abyssal immediately scarfed down the meat, and then glanced curiously at the_ _building_ _sitting in the middle of the ocean. Opening the door, it stepped in. The carrier waited for the screams of agony - and all she got was a wet gurgle._

 _Coming out from her hiding spot, she inched up to the front again, and peered out at the grill. Surprisingly, it looked fine, despite being in front of the fumes coming from the building. She got closer - and then hastily ducked as_ something _tore out of the building. That something landed on the water, revealing itself to be-_

 _Kaga retched. Somehow, the curry had attached itself to the Abyssal, spreading under its skin until it controlled the dark creature. The result was a grotesque blob sitting on the heavy cruiser's shoulders, veins bulging under her skin and her mouth open in a silent, agonized scream._

 _The carrier immediately hit it in the face with every 8" gun she could bring to bear._

 _To her shock, however, the_ thing _controlling the heavy cruiser caught the armor-piercing shells in its tentacles. Too close for aircraft, heavy guns useless, there was only one thing to do._

 _Let Akagi's orbiting torpedo bombers have a go._

 _The tentacles, naturally, stopped the torpedoes, too, but that left it open for another salvo of 8". It turned to face Kaga - and then Akagi's torpedo bombers dove in again and destroyed the monster._

~o~

"Okay, yeah, that's a good reason to not weaponize Hiei's curry," Yuubari agreed. "I'll need to- SHIT!"

Goto blinked at the sudden swear. "What is it?"

"I told Yuubari to go start the experiment without me!" she yelped. "Sorry, gotta go, I need to stop her!"

Yuubari immediately bolted out the door, leaving a bemused Goto behind.


	292. Rule 968

**Rule 968: Just because the German Destroyers look like guys does not mean they are guys.  
**  
"Alright, guys, you know the plan!" Kagero whispered to her four division-mates. "We invite Lebe-kun to the baths, and then check their plumbing!"

"This is stupid," Kasumi griped. "She's a girl! We all are! This whole thing is pointless!"

"The _other_ German destroyers are," Kagerou agreed. "But Lebe-kun totally looks and sounds like a boy! We need to check!"

"Um..." Arare cut in. "Shiranui... is already... inviting her."

"Yo, Lebe-kun," the other Kagero was saying. "Want go join Kagero and Shiranui at the baths?"

Lebe-kun, a.k.a. Z-1 Lebercht Maass, frowned slightly. "I already took a shower today," she replied. "And why did you refer to yourself in the third person?"

"It's a bonding experience," Shiranui said, ignoring the last question.

"Plus!" Kagero chirped, popping up out of nowhere and grabbing Lebe. "A little skinship between-!"

*WHAM!*

Lebe pulled back her fist from where she'd punched Kagero into the floor. "You just want to see if I'm a boy," she accused, looking rather angry.

Shiranui pondered that question for a few seconds. "Yes," she finally answered.

Throwing one last glare at the Japanese tin can, Lebe turned on her heel and stalked off, steam puffing from her nose.

~o~

One of the major weaknesses of the Type 1934 destroyer had been short range. British destroyers half their size had double the range. This and their small number meant that German destroyers were usually reserved for the tail end of convoy runs.

USS McNulty watched as the Germans came to take on this convoy. Exhausted though she was by the Transatlantic run, she nonetheless kept her eyes peeled for one particular destroyer. Finally, she spotted her quarry, and snapped her fingers.

On one of the cargo ships, a trebuchet built with the assistance of Kearsarge swung, hurling a large lump of mud into the air. Most of the German destroyers saw it coming and scattered in time. Lebe did not, and was promptly splattered in mud.

"Success!" McNulty whispered, pumping her fist. "Okay, girls, on to phase..."

To her dismay, rather than turn around to head back to Portsmouth and the showers, Lebe simply grabbed the hand of her nearest sister and fell into the water. Her face was still above water, but that was solved by several other girls splashing her.

"Thanks. I'll get the rest off when we get back to Wilhelmshaven."

"Dammit!"

~o~

Boiky and Gromky crept through the baths of Baltiysk Naval Base, heading for the sauna rooms. The German destroyer Z1 Lebrecht Maass was in there, and now they had a chance to solve an age-old question.

Luckily for their search, the German destroyer was in the only occupied stall. It didn't take them long to find it, and they opened the door - just as their quarry poured water onto the hot coals, producing a massive gout of steam.

"Gah! I can't see anything!" Boiky yelped.

"Don't let her get out!" Gromky added.

Finally, the steam cleared enough for them to see - and there was no Lebe.

"Fuck!"

In the changing room, Lebe smiled at the shout of frustration.

~o~

Grom groaned, clutching at her stomach as the room swam around her. It had been such a good idea: invite Lebe out, challenge her to a drinking contest, and then once she was sufficiently drunk, confirm her gender.

As it turned out, that had been a mistake.

The Polish destroyer looked over the room. The other three destroyers of the Polish navy were all passed out, while Lebe was looking mildly buzzed but not much else.

"Mm... I think I should head home now," she said, getting up and walking out the door. Grom was in no state to stop her, and in fact passed out shortly thereafter.

~o~

"Yeah, she's got a boyfriend," Aoba confirmed, handing over a photo. "Here, have a look."

After three more tries - a trip to a nude beach on the Riviera, random 'boner checks', and seeing which winter equipment she donned - the destroyers of the world had decided to try a different tactic to determine Lebe's gender. Namely, finding out if she was dating anyone and asking _them_. To their collective surprise, she had a boyfriend. Even more surprising was his appearance.

"Oh my God he's girlier than she is," Kasumi muttered.

Indeed, the young man with Lebe looked incredibly feminine, and the long ponytail he wore was not helping. In fact, with Lebe wearing pants in that picture, it was practically impossible to tell who was the guy.

"He is male... right?" Tigre confirmed.

"Yup, checked it myself," Aoba replied. "And Lebe-kun's a girl, no doubt about that."

Only Grom noticed the blush on the heavy cruiser's cheeks and pieced together what that probably meant.

 _'I'm not sure what's more disturbing,'_ she thought to herself. _'The thought that those two are doing_ that _, or finding out just how voyeuristic Aoba is.'_


	293. Rule 973

**Rule 973. Yes, Murakumo's second remodel gives her a fabulously fluffy head of hair. That doesn't mean you can run your hands in it without her permission.  
**  
"Hey, Hatsuharu," Murakumo greeted, studiously ignoring the hands Atago was rubbing through her hair.

"So fluffy..."

"Greetings, Murakumo," the other destroyer replied, studiously ignoring Nagato pressing her cheek to her head and rubbing her hair. "We see you are beset by the same affliction as us."

"So fluffy..."

"Yes," Murakumo grit out. "I mean, I love getting a Kai Ni upgrade, but this almost makes it not seem worth it."

"Verily," Hatsuharu agreed, holding up her fan. "In any case, shall we rid ourselves of our mutual pests, no matter how ephemeral the reprieve may be?"

"Gladly," Murakumo answered, holding up her guns.

*SMACK!*

*BOOM!*

"Auuu!" Atago whined, clutching the spreading bruise on her forehead. Nagato, meanwhile, staggered back, her forehead smoking from a 5" shell, and the other round lodged in her teeth.

"See ya," Murakumo drawled, saluting the other destroyer.

"We will meet again," Hatsuharu agreed.

The two soon separated, but not five minutes later Murakumo felt hands running through her hair again.

"So fluffy..." Tatsuta crooned.

The sound that Murakumo made should not have been producible by a human mouth.

~o~

One of the more surprising entrants into the Abyssal War had been the Philippines. Its small but very skilled shipgirl force counted on several former Asiatic Fleet destroyers, a grab-bag of older escort and auxiliary types, a US Navy cruiser squadron on loan, and the formerly American armored cruiser Rochester. All of this had been spearheaded by Captain Darren on basically a hunch. Luckily for him it was a good hunch.

Oh, and there was one more shipgirl that regularly frequented the new Admiralty building in Manila, despite loudly stating that she hated the place and its Admiral every chance she got.

"It's ridiculous!" Murakumo griped as she sat in Captain Darren's office. "I can't take two steps without someone trying to fluff my hair!"

Captain Darren nodded along, most of his attention focused on trying to not reach out and fluff that wondrous hair. It was very difficult, and only the long experience of many beatings at the hand of Murakumo allowed his willpower to stay intact.

"I mean, yeah, it's ridiculously fluffy, and that's pretty nice, but still!" She sighed and shook her head. "Honestly, you'd think they'd have _some_ self-control."

Captain Darren's hand twitched, but no more.

"So..." he said. "Does that mean you won't let anyone fluff your hair?"

"I-" Murakumo began before pausing and frowning in thought. "Actually, I think I'm more mad that people keep doing it without permission. It... actually feels kinda nice."

"May I fluff your hair?"

Murakumo looked askance at the Philippine captain. "I... guess that would be alright? But not for too long, you pervert! I don't want you getting any ideas."

Captain Darren nodded, and reached out. His hand touched her head, and then he moved it back and forth, tousling the hairs. The destroyer didn't react, other than with a light blush. And then-

Captain Darren blinked at the sound coming from Murakumo's throat. "Are you... purring?"

"N-No!" the destroyer immediately denied, her blush deepening. "Of course not, you shitty admiral!"

"You we~re," Captain Darren sang, grinning.

"Shut up!"

"You can't fool my ears, Murakumo," Captain Darren countered, his smile now ear-to-ear. "You were definitely-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!" the destroyer shouted, punctuating her point with a rabbit punch to the jaw.


	294. Rule 977

**Rule 977. Phrases along the lines of "YOLO", "Hold my beer and watch this", "And welcome to** ** _Jackass_** **", "Witness me", etc., are all strictly prohibited.  
**  
"Gentlemen," Admiral Goto solemnly stated. "We are here today with a very important mission: to see which memetic statements are harmless and should stay, which are dangerous and should go, and which ones are dangerous but serve an important warning. Discuss."

"Here's one that needs to stay," the Australian admiral stated, clearing his throat. "WITNESS ME!"

Immediately, Admirals Hartmann and Holloway groaned.

"Who was it and what did she do?" the latter asked.

"Well..."

~o~

 _For the first time in a very long time, all of Australia's cruisers were together. Australia and Canberra led the improvised battle line, Perth, Sydney, and Hobart trailing behind. The five cruisers were scouting the western coast of New Guinea, trying to prevent the Abyssals holed up throughout Indonesia from crossing into the big island._

 _As it turned out, they were. Namely, six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and a whopping twenty-six destroyers, all escorting a gaggle of transports._

 _"Okay..." Hobart said. She had spotted the Abyssals first, and hopefully they hadn't seen them yet. "They look to be escorting that convoy. The transports are the number one priority, so we'll need some way to draw off the-"_

 _"Not this time, you bloody wankers!" Perth suddenly cut in, grabbing a torpedo and a can of spray paint, spraying the latter in her open mouth. "Witness me!"_

 _The other four cruisers watched, dumbfounded, as their sister/comrade sped off at overload speed towards the entire Abyssal task force, brandishing her torpedo like some sort of spear._

 _"Uh, should I go help her?" Australia asked hesitantly._

 _"You and Canberra," Hobart nodded in agreement. "Sydney and I will take the transports."_

~o~

"Yes, that is good to know," Goto said, writing down the phrase. "Any others?"

"I've got one," Holloway said. "Just to be sure, does everyone know what YOLO stands for?"

~o~

 _Johnston peered out over at the thundering duel between the Abyssal and American battle lines. It was quite the sight; very rarely did anyone have the chance to see all ten fast battleships deploy at once. The small destroyer considered her course of action, and the lumbering convoy behind her, as well as the fact that the fight had been drifting steadily closer._

 _"Well, you only live once," she said, shrugging. Her turbines surged-_

 _"HURK!"_

 _Only for her forward momentum to be abruptly arrested by a hand grabbing her collar._

 _"I am_ not _letting you go on another hairbrained charge against a bunch of battleships!" Hoel snapped. "I'm not losing you again!"_

 _"I, uh..."_

 _Johnston flinched as tears started to flow from her sister's eyes. "Alright, alright, I'll hold off on it until-" She flinched again as Hoel glared through her tears. "_ If _the battleships get beat. Happy?"_

~o~

"I think you can all guess what my entry is going to be..." Hartmann stated.

~o~

 _Copying the example of the Canadians, the German surface fleet had constructed a cheap prefab beer hall they could stick on the deck of a merchant ship for quick access to beer. Not only was it convenient, it made them very popular with the British shipgirls._

 _Of course, some of them simply couldn't keep their self-control and ended up buzzed on sorties. Mostly Emden._

 _"Hey, guys," the light cruiser said shortly after Tirpitz spotted a prowling heavy cruiser on the horizon. "Hold my beer and watch this!"_

 _"How about no," the battleship in question stated, clamping a vice grip on Emden's shoulder. "I've seen enough Youtube videos to know that you've got something stupid planned."_

 _"Yeah, even I can tell that!" Scharnhorst added._

 _"B-But-!" Emden stammered, trying to wriggle free and in doing so dislodging something from her rigging._

 _"Is that a Nebelwerfer?" Tirpitz muttered, leaning down to pick it up. She got one look at the rockets and paled dramatically. "With... sarin... rockets..."_

 _The rest of the German shipgirls gaped in open-mouthed horror, while Emden simply slumped down in shame._

~o~

"Alright, any other-?" Goto began before a junior lieutenant burst into the room.

"A-Admiral!" he panted, holding out his phone. "L-Look!"

 _"Hello, everyone, and welcome to Jackass!"_ Aoba announced. Almost instantly, she was side-kicked from offscreen by Naka.

 _"Dammit, you stupid heavy cruiser!"_ the Fleet's idol shouted in obvious anger. _"This was_ not _what I signed up for! You'll be talking to my lawyers, I can guarantee this!"  
_  
Despite Aoba's reputation, every Admiral present winced at that. Lawyers were no joke, and one of the few things they all feared.

"Alright, add 'Welcome to Jackass' to the third list," Goto ordered.


	295. Rule 983

**Rule 983: The following phrases are not to be uttered over the radio upon encountering a new type of enemy abyssal:**

Admiral Goto felt his bowels clench as a new black dot popped up on screen. Unlike the rest of the black dots, this one wasn't flagged with a two-letter code denoting its class, or the flashing warning sign of an Installation or Water Demon. Instead, there were just three question marks.

Silence hung in the CIC for a long moment, and then the radio exploded into chatter.

 _"I'm going to have fun dissecting that thing."_  
 _  
"Yuubari, no."_

 _"Yeah, let's poke it with a stick and see what it does."_

 _"Take,_ no _."  
_  
"What Fubuki said," Goto replied once he got his wits about him. "Appearance? Capabilities?"  
 _  
"Oh dear God, what the fuck?!"_  
 _  
"The ratio of tentacle to body surface is rather distressing."_

 _"That's my fetish."_

 _"Ravage me, you sexy beast."_

 _"Mmm, I know what I'm doing tonight."_

 _" Pretty."_

 _"... We honestly do not know what We should have expected."_

"So, nightmarish with lots of phallic tentacles," a junior ensign muttered as he scribbled something on a notepad. Goto, meanwhile, was hanging his face in his hands as Captain Yonehara gaped in astonishment.

"Okay, Australia I get, but... was that Iku, Mutsu, and _Kisaragi_ , of all ships?"

"Sir?"

Goto looked up at the picture the ensign was holding up, which could be best described as Urotsukidoji as drawn by Hirohiko Araki.

"Yes, thank you ensign," he grit out as Yonehara retched behind him.

 _"Whelp, we're boned."_

 _"Yeah, fuck this shit, I'm out."_

"Smart girls," Yonehara muttered.  
 _  
"I just found Hoppo-chan a new sister!"  
_  
"Okay, that's it," Goto snarled, a black aura springing up around him. "Everything _dies."_

~o~

Kongo sighed dreamily as she watched her Admiral dragged behind him what had been tentatively dubbed the Abyssal Capture Demon so that Yuubari could get her planned vivisection. Watching him absolutely _demolish_ that monster had been quite... exciting. And the fact that his uniform had been artfully shredded to expose his _delectable_ muscles was just icing on the cake.

And, if she were perfectly honest, watching Iku, Nagato, Mutsu, Kisaragi, Take, and Yuubari trailing behind him in hung-headed contrition was very nice, too. That he could dominate such powerful personalities so easily...

Hastily wiping away some drool, Kongo whipped out her phone and began frantically typing down notes. She spent several minutes doing this before she noticed Kirishima peering over her shoulder.

"O-Oh, hey, Kirishima-chan!" Kongo stammered, blushing. "W-What are you-?"

"Trust me, you don't want to do that," the other battleship stated, pointing to one of the lines. "It's not as fun as it seems in your head."

"R-Right," Kongo said, deleting the line. Kirishima nodded, and then changed course to return to the battle line. For a brief moment, the lead ship of the Kongo-class thought about asking her youngest sister how she knew that, before tossing it into the metaphorical recycle bin.

 _'I don't need to know_ that _much about my baby sister's sex life,'_ she thought.


	296. Rule 988

**Rule 988. Hoppo-chan and her friends, the Allied Abyssal Fleet, wish to point out that they do not wish to help with Opposing Force training exercises.  
**  
Normally, a Re-class battleship and Wo-class carrier kicking down an Admiral's door, accompanied by four different Installation type Abyssals, would be cause for a panic the likes of which hadn't been seen since Arizona tried to ban Twinkies. Considering the six were the leaders of what had been dubbed the "Allied Abyssal Fleet", Admiral Goto just sighed and put away his paperwork as a lost cause.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

[We are _not_ doing another Opposing Force training exercise!] the Armored Carrier Princess growled. [Consider them cancelled!]

[This is not what I signed up for when I declared that oath!] JDS WOrktown added.

Goto sighed. "What have my shipgirls done this time?" he asked. "Groping? Pokeballs? Laser-guided Nagamon?"

[S-Someone used live rounds,] Hoppo-chan and Nii-chan whimpered in unison.

"What."

Goto didn't have any time to unfuck his brain before Nagato suddenly Kool-Aid Manned through the wall, her expression well beyond thunderous. Then her eyes fell on the two Northern Ocean Princesses and she went starry-eyed.

"Oh, Hoppo-chan, Nii-chan, you poor dears," she cooed as she grabbed the two and hugged them close. "Don't worry, Mama Nagato will handle this." She turned to the other four Abyssals in the room, her expression back to 'pissed beyond belief'. "Well? Who did this?!"

[Th-That was...] the tanned Re-chan shuddered.

[I feel unclean...] Anchorage Princess agreed.

WOrktown and Armored Carrier Princess exchanged glances before the former jabbed an accusatory finger at the battleship. [Well, besides the Americans, _you_ were the worst culprit.]

Nagato froze, and Admiral Goto could swear she turned white and cracked. "W-What?"

[Yeah, I remember you shooting at me!] Re-chan accused, grabbing Nagato's gun barrels. [See! You've still got the cordite residue!]

[Blanks use cordite, too, Re-chan...] Anchorage Princess pointed out.

"I-I couldn't... I would never..." Nagato's face scrunched up in tears. "I'M A TERRIBLE MOTHER!" And with that, she dove through another wall, sobbing her head off.

Something in Goto twisted as he looked over the latest hole in the wall. "Right... I think that's punishment enough for Nagato," he decided. "As for the rest, send me a list of names and I'll take care of things."

[And no more OpFor exercises, right?] WOrktown added.

"And no more OpFor exercises."

~o~

Nagato looked over the list, her whole body shaking. Those Abyssal bitches had lied! Her memory wasn't faulty! She hadn't used live ammo on Hoppo-chan and Nii-chan!

Her mind naturally ignored the fact that she _had_ used live ammo on Re-chan.

But they could wait for later. Instead, she had some fellow shipgirls to beat into the ground for daring to shoot at her girls!

"Uh, Nagato?"

Nagato glanced back to see Kongo looking apologetic. "Sorry about this," she said. And then she punched her in the face.

~o~

Kiso gaped at the feed of the battle between Nagato and Kongo. The whole thing was giving her a headache with how often it switched cameras, but it was a sad necessity with how they were jumping around like teleporting monkeys on speed.

"How did she do that?!" Kiso yelped as Kongo dove into a mirror to evade Nagato, the other battleship sinking into a pool of shadows. "Seriously, how?!"

"That's the twelfth time you've said that in as many minutes," Ooyodo informed her. "I realize how incredible this whole thing is, but it is getting on my nerves, and I'd rather not have to kick you out."

"I still can't believe Kongo won that," the light cruiser muttered as the fight moved into another room - and then Kongo grabbed Hoppo-chan and Nii-chan and held them in front of her.

 _"Y-You'we scawing me, Mama."  
_  
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Kiso commented as Nagato collapsed from the twin puppy-dog eyes. "Also, I think I might have diabetes now."


	297. Rule 993

**Rule 993. Just because you can carry a tank cannon set up as a sniper rifle doesn't mean you should.  
**  
South Dakota perked up as a rock bounced off the window to the Department of Unconventional Engineering Solutions. Going over to the window, she pulled it open and-

*THWACK!*

"Sorry!" Samuel B. Roberts called up as she dropped the rest of the rocks she was holding. "Anyway, I have a problem for you to solve! I need these converted into something I can use!"

The battleship dropped her hand from where it had been rubbing her forehead and glanced toward where Sammy B. was indicating, blinking in surprise at the sight of two M1 Abrams turrets sitting on a heavyweight cart behind her. "Why... do you want to strap a pair of tank guns to your rigging?"

"Have you seen what those sabots do to armor?" the destroyer escort demanded. "Twenty inches of penetration! It's nuts!"

South Dakota raised an eyebrow. "You do know that the after-armor effects on a ship basically amount to poking someone with a needle, right?"

"Bah, that's with normal ships," Sammy B. waved dismissively. "But with an Abyssal, all that vital stuff is quashed into a tiny, compact human body! Those sabots should be _devastating!_ "

The mad battleship considered that. The equally mad DE had a point, or at least enough of one to try it out and see how it worked. There were other issues with sabot, of course, but given Sammy B.'s predilection for getting up close and personal that wasn't an issue.

"Alright, load those up into the elevator and I'll see what I can do."

~o~

"I got word from White Plains!" Heermann reported. "We've got an incoming battleship! Ta-class!"

"Herd it towards me!" Samuel B. Roberts demanded. "I've got something I want to try!"

"Does that have anything to do with your new turrets?" Hoel wondered, eyeing the two massive sniper rifle-like guns she was holding. The damn things were bigger than she was. And the belt feed leading into her rigging... somehow, the shells were smaller the closer they got to the rigging, and it gave her a headache just to look at them.

"Yup!" she chirped. "I'm gonna go test them out!" And with that, she sped off for the dot on the horizon.

Half an hour of dodging shell splashes later, Sammy B.'s new direct-fire fire control system told her she was in range. But she held her fire; at this range, the sabots might lose enough velocity to not penetrate. So she sped closer, zig-zagging around the fire, and soon she was close enough that she could see the frustrated scowl on the Abyssal's face.

"Alright, take this!" Sammy B. announced, aiming her guns. "Samuel B. Roberts' new special anti-battleship guns! FIRE!"

The gun boomed, the sabot crossed the remaining distance in mere seconds - and struck. Sammy B. whooped - and then noticed that the battleship _wasn't_ dead.

"The fuck?!" she yelped, noticing that the sabot was sticking out of the Abyssal's gut like an arrow. "Alright, take this!"

The next sabot struck the shoulder and also stuck.

"Oh come on!" she howled, firing again and again. "Die! Die die die die die!"

Panting, Sammy B. frantically backpedaled as the Ta-class battleship, looking more and more like a demented uranium porcupine, charged for her, murder in its eyes. Still, the little destroyer escort did have a backup plan, and in its rage the Abyssal didn't notice the trio of torpedoes until they blew its legs off.

"Okay..." the destroyer panted. "That didn't work. Good to know."


	298. Rule 998

**Rule 998. While anti-fraternization regs may be somewhat relaxed in regards to shipgirls, implying that they got to their posts by sleeping with their Admiral is still conduct unbecoming and it carries stiff penalties.  
**  
"Yo, Galatea."

The light cruiser in question glanced up at Southampton, who had sat down at her table a few minutes prior with her breakfast.

"What?"

"Why are you glaring at King George V?" Southampton asked.

The Arethusa-class light cruiser muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," Southampton replied.

"Why is _she_ in charge?" Galatea demanded, indicating the battleship, who was chattering away with her sisters.

The other light cruiser was silent for a moment before speaking up. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"Okay, she's both Admiral Collingwood's secretary ship _and_ commander of the battleships here, right?" Galatea said, getting a confirming nod. "Why? It's stupid! There are better qualified shipgirls for both positions!"

Southampton frowned, noting that several other nearby cruisers had turned around and were now watching their little scene. Slowly, she put down her fork and looked Galatea straight in the eyes. "You've been in the Mediterranean this whole time, so I'm going to cut you some slack," she replied. "Trust me, just turn around and walk away."

"Hood would be a better battleship commander and you all know it!" Galatea stated, her voice steadily rising in volume. "And Caroline would be a better secretary ship, and wouldn't require pulling a battleship off active duty!"

"Galatea..." Southampton growled in warning.

"I bet she got those positions by-"

In a flash, Southampton grabbed the smaller cruiser by the cheeks and pulled her close. "Don't say another _goddamn_ word," Southampton growled, her voice a full octave lower than normal. "Up until now, I've been polite. But I draw the _fucking_ line at implying that Georgie got her position by _sleeping_ with the Admiral."

Galatea whimpered, and Southampton was aware of _something_ rising behind her, but she forged on. "I don't know what's more insulting: that you think Admiral Collingwood is stupid enough to actually do that, or that you think their relationship is a sham that Georgie created just to _climb the ranks._ " Southampton gave Galatea a shake, and then threw her back, prompting the light cruiser to fall on her ass, quivering. "I am pissed off, Galatea, but most of all I am _disgusted_ with you - and more than a little sad. Go back to Alexandria. Maybe you'll grow up a little more, but I doubt it."

There was silence for a second - and then the entire cafeteria broke out in applause. Southampton gaped, dumbfounded, while Galatea shot to her feet and bolted from the room, tears streaming from her eyes. No one followed - and no one noticed Duke of York slip out of the room.

~o~

Duke of York padded over to one of the hills rising above Scapa Flow, sheep flowing around her like a living river. Sure enough, right at the crest was Galatea, her eyes red and tear tracks still visible on her cheeks.

"You here to yell at me, too?" she said, her voice utterly defeated.

"Nah. I just thought you could use some company," Duke of York replied as she sat down next to the cruiser. "It's an awesome view."

Galatea sniffed wetly. "Yeah, it is."

The two were silent for several minutes before Duke of York spoke up. "Warspite's pretty awesome, isn't she?"

Her companion's face lightened some, a wan smile spreading across her face. "Yeah, she is. Not just at kicking ass, but at leading. She always knows what to do, how to inspire people."

"Yeah," Duke of York agreed. "It's a rare trait anywhere. When you find someone with that... spark, you have to get them somewhere where they can use it."

Galatea was silent for a second before she sighed and hung her head. "I fucked up. I fucked up bad."

"Eh," Duke of York hedged, waving her hand back and forth. "It all depends on when Hood gets back. If we can explain things before the grapevine, she'll forgive and everyone else will be happy to drop it. If she does hear from the grapevine-"

"GALATEA!"

Hood's voice rang out through the entire lagoon, prompting both light cruiser and battleship to flinch.

"Alright, slight change of plans," Duke of York stated. "We're going to sneak you into the Admiral's office so he can handle this, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Galatea barked.


	299. Rule 1003

**By: Shaithan**

 **Rule 1003. Leaving a Torpedo, Shell or Depth Charge in the bed of a Kanmusu that annoyed you is forbidden.**

There were many, many things that excited or excited~ Iku. Firing her torpedoes at unsuspecting targets, spying on unsuspecting targets to launch a surprise attack, or simply taking in the appealing sights the world had to offer.

So, she had been very surprised when Admiral Goto had told her that she would be stationed in the US for the shipgirl exchange program for eight weeks.

San Diego was in many ways different from Yokosuka. More girls were bustling about, the base was bigger and the USS Missouri sat in port. Admiral Briggs had put her in the submarine dorm; more specifically, she roomed with Harder.

Iku considered rooming with the other girl fun. Harder was daring and often accompanied Iku when she set out to sample the local beauties and hunks.

She found that making the destroyers flustered was the most fun. She didn't even need to do much. Many of them already started stammering when she merely wiggled in place.

One thing that had begun to disturb her was something Harder experienced. Some days they'd return to their room and Harder would find a "present" in her bed. Mostly shells, but there had been depth charges and even the odd torpedo in there. Harder would give them to the NCO in charge of ordinance in the morning and not talk about it.

And on her eighth day in America, she found the first shell in her bed.

Harder just sighed. "Put it with mine, we'll give it to Warren in the morning," she said.

Iku shrugged. It might have been a mistake, after all.

The next day the girls went on sortie, but were quickly surprised by Abyssal depth charge attacks. They escaped, but some time in the docks would be needed.

As they dived into the pool, Missouri and Wisconsin came in, obviously unaware of the submarines already in the dock. Iku would have whistled if she weren't submerged. Next to her, Harder had a matching grin.

Both girls went to the bottom of the pool, to have a better view and to be less visible themselves. Alerting the two Iowa sisters to their presence was out of the question; chances were they would hit first and not bother with asking questions afterwards. Battleships tended to be jumpy and the old crones didn't understand fun.

So, they sat at the bottom of the pool, waiting, watching.

Several hours later the battleships left the repair dock, giving Iku and Harder a chance to surface.

Harder expressed what both thought. "Floating. They were floating," she breathed reverently.

Iku grinned. "Yeah. Still got nothing on Musashi or the Takao sisters," she stated with absolute certainty.

When they returned to their quarters, both girls had to remove several pieces of ordinance from their beds, again. Iku was becoming increasingly spooked by the whole thing, especially because there were several depth charges that had "Sink the lewdmarine!" scrawled on it.

Deciding to find out if this had a deeper meaning, other than being a nuisance, Iku took to the internet.

Minutes later she grabbed Harder to show her what she found. "They want to kill us!" she frantically said.

Harder read the article and paled, too. Fragging. She hadn't given the occurrences special thought, but it seemed like they actually had meaning, a meaning she had been unaware of.

"We need a safe bed!" Iku said. "I won't sleep somewhere where people will attack me in my sleep!"

Harder nodded, shaken herself. "But who will they not attack? The other submarines?" she gave back.

Iku nodded imperiously. "The Admiral!" she stated full of conviction.

Harder nodded, that made sense. No shipgirl would ever attack a good Admiral. "Well, let's go. I know where his bed is," she said, making Iku grin.

"Oh~? Did you sleep~ there before~~?" she wanted to know.

Harder blushed hard. "No, I just like to know where everything on base is in case I need a place to be on my own," she said.

Iku hugged her fellow submarine. "Well~" she began. "Let's grab our bedding and move to safer pastures."

Minutes later both girls stealthily made their way to the Officer's Home where Admiral Briggs' safe bed was.

Unseen they entered the Admiral's quarters, put their bedding on his bed and went to sleep, safe in the knowledge that no one would attack them there.

Several hours later a dead tired Admiral Briggs made his way to his quarters. An early morning call from Germany to sort out an incident involving Fletcher and Z3 Max Schultz and another call from Japan about Atlanta who had gotten in a fistfight with Hiei after scaring Akatsuki had kept him awake for some time. He'd also had to wait for New Jersey and her convoy to check in.

Now he just wanted one thing: to fall into his bed and sleep until the war was over.

Looking at his bed, he didn't trust his tired eyes. Iku and Harder were laying there, clinging to each other like kids. Any other time he would have found it cute, but currently they were occupying his bed. And he needed his sleep.

He gently shook Harder's shoulder to wake her. Rudely waking a shipgirl was a downright suicidal idea. It had been attempted only once, and it ended with a thoroughly sorry Warspite and a Leading Rate needing immediate medical attention. Her shocked flailing had sent the man flying through a nearby desk, something Briggs didn't want to chance.

After a minute Harder stirred, grabbing Iku tighter. "Hm, leave me alone, Darter, 'm tired an' Iku's comfy," she muttered, still half-asleep.

Briggs cleared his throat. "Harder, wake up," he ordered.

Harder's eyes shot open. "Admiral!" she shouted, waking Iku, who also jumped up, leading to her getting tangled into Harder, and then to both girls falling from the bed.

"Right in the conning tower," Iku moaned from where she was sprawled onto the floor. "And my poor boobies, too. Ouchie." Gingerly, she reached up to see if anything worse than some bruising had happened.

Harder wasn't any better off, but her vantage point allowed her to see the Admiral's PJ's. "Star Trek?" she asked incredulously.

"Not one word!" Briggs gave back.

"But, but, but..." Harder said helplessly. "Star Trek. And the Enterprise D!"

Briggs sighed. "What I want to know is why you are sleeping in my bed. You should still have your own beds," he said, trying to steer the conversation away from his PJs.

"Nope! We're not sleeping there any longer!" Harder said forcefully.

Briggs was taken aback. Usually Harder wasn't this forceful outside of battles. "Why?" he wanted to know.

Iku cut in. "Because we were threatened!" she said matter-of-factly.

Briggs blinked in confusion, utterly lost. "Threatened?" he parroted.

Iku nodded. "People keep leaving munitions in Harder's and my bed. On one of those left in my bed someone painted 'Sink the lewdmarine'. That is a threat! So we needed a safe bed. And no bed is safer than yours!" she explained.

Briggs felt his blood boil. "Harder, how long has this been going on?" he wanted to know.

Harder shrugged. "I dunno. It's been a while. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. But... I want to say three months?" she guessed. "Iku got her first present the second day here."

"And you didn't think you should tell me this?!" Briggs shouted, before reigning himself in. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shouted at you. Just, you got threatened for months and never once told me. Girl, such things are serious."

Harder shrugged. "I didn't know what it meant. Iku looked it up after finding depth charges with a message for her. We decided to sleep in your bed to be safe," she said.

Briggs heaved a deep sigh. "Oh, girls. First of all, you can sleep here tonight. Tomorrow I'll talk to the MPs so we can catch the culprit as soon as possible. This is not something I will tolerate on my base!" he said. Then he went to a couch and laid down. "Good night, girls," he said, and drifted off to sleep. One thing he was sure of, none of his girls would do such a thing. This was the deed of a human. And he would bring down the wrath of an admiral upon this person.


	300. Rule 1005

**Rule 1005. Do not try to get your admirals drunk so that they forget important things.  
**  
Admiral Goto groaned as the sun seemed to strike directly into his eyes. He counted down what he could feel. Titanium woodpecker trying to bore through his skull? Check. Warm, naked body pressed up against him? Check. Covers half off? Check. Nagging feeling that he was forgetting something? Check.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, raising his hands to wipe away the crust. He was back in his quarters, which considering he last remembered being dragged into a bar in downtown Tokyo was rather reassuring. A glance to his right revealed Kongo as the source of the warm naked body pressed up against him. A glance to his left showed just wall and his uniform in a crumpled pile on the floor.

"What the hell did I do last night?" he muttered.

To his surprise, Ooyodo poked her head in from the attached kitchen.

"Oh, good, you're awake," she said. "I've got breakfast, coffee, and my patented hangover cure cooking. If you could get dressed and check the nightstand, that would be great." And with that, she re-entered the kitchen, the sound of a blender starting up.

Still completely and utterly confused, Goto stood, put on a pair of pants, and grabbed a stack of papers that had been sitting on the night stand. It consisted of a flight itinerary in two days' time for Jamaica and a form authorizing three weeks of paid vacation for him and Kongo, all signed under his name.

"Breakfast is ready!" Ooyodo announced as she poked her head back in. "Oh, I see you've found the vacation forms."

"When did I-" Goto began.

"Oh, last night when we got back to base," the light cruiser immediately - perhaps hastily - answered. "Trust me, you need this. When we found you to go drinking, you were completely zonked out."

Despite his mental gears grinding slightly at his secretary ship using the word "zonked", he had to admit, the idea of a vacation appealed to him.

"I don't often say this, Ooyodo, but thanks," he said, smiling. "Now, if you don't mind, Kongo and I are about to have an intimate moment."

"Of course, sir," Ooyodo replied, bowing and stepping out of the Admiral's apartment. She didn't get far before Kisaragi, Yuubari, and Kiso popped up in front of her.

"Did it work?" they all chorused.

"I assume so, given how spectacular the... incident was and that he didn't mention it at all," Ooyodo replied. "Did you get rid of the evidence?"

"Of course!" Yuubari smugly replied.

"Alright..." Ooyodo sighed. "Then if you would hand over the evidence?"

Kiso nodded, and pulled out a large camera with a piece of masking tape identifying it as Aoba's. "Everything's on here; we managed to get to her before she uploaded it all."

"Dare I ask how you pried this out of her fingers?"

"Well..."

~o~

"So, Kiso, how do you like your new sword?" Yuubari asked.

"It's great!" the light cruiser replied. "A bit on the heavy side, though you balanced it perfectly."

"Well, that's what happens when you make a katana out of depleted uranium," the mad scientist bragged. "It's actually surprising how tough that metal is, and for a shipgirl the weight and carcinogenic properties aren't a problem." Her grin widened by a few more molars. "Oh, and it lights things on fire if you swing it hard enough."

"Hmm, that might make it tricky to sharpen..." Kiso muttered, doing a few experimental swings. "Speaking of which, how sharp _did_ you get it?"

"I cut through a rock when I was testing the blade," Yuubari replied. "A swordsmaster like you should be able to cut through steel, though. Maybe we should test that..."

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I GET IT, I'LL HAND OVER THE CAMERA!" Aoba shrieked from where she was tied to a training post with sturdy steel cable. "JUST UNTIE ME ALREADY BEFORE THAT CHUUNI GIRL CHOPS ME UP!"

"I'm tempted to do it just for that line," Kiso grumbled.

"Save it, we do need her intact," Yuubari countered.

~o~

"We were very persuasive."

Ooyodo shrugged. "Well, alright. By the way, which one of you slipped those other requisition forms in? They seemed pretty harmless, so I let him sign them, but..."

Her eyes widened as all three other ships jerked in sudden panic.

"We didn't put in any requisition forms!" Kisaragi shrieked.

"What did they request?!" Yuubari demanded.

"Hello, girls~."

All four ships turned around to see Akatsuki behind them, a mug of darker-than-pitch coffee in one hand, a seductive smile on her face, and an apparent extra ten years of growth. Oh, and wearing the "black widow" dress Tatsuta had bought Tenryuu a while back.

"Is Admiral Goto in there~?" she purred. "I'd like to see him, please~."

"Halt!"

Once again, the four ships turned around, this time beholding Kirishima pointing at Akatsuki - _with her glasses off_.

"The relationship between Kongo and Goto is one of sweet love and purity!" the battleship announced. "I will not let you disturb that, you hussy!"

"Hussy?!" Akatsuki demanded, a twitch developing in her eye and a purple aura springing up around her. "You wanna go, you shitty old battleship?"

"Yes..." Kirishima hissed, steam coming out of her mouth. "Yes I would."

Ooyodo, Kiso, Kisaragi, and Yuubari watched the proceedings with increasing alarm, and with that last line the secretary ship took action.

"Run like children!" she shrieked before diving headfirst out the nearest window.


	301. Rule 1010

**Rule 1010. If anyone spoils the new Star Wars, they're dead.  
**  
"There's a sequel trilogy?!"

Salem and Newport News exchanged glances at their recently summoned elder sister. "Uh, yes?" Newport News said. "Episode VII has been out for almost a decade."

"Oh, man..." Des Moines breathed. "That means the prequel trilogy must have been released! Oh, was it as good as we thought it was? Better?"

"Uh..." Salem began before Des Moines descended into full-on fangirling. "Was she always this into Star Wars?"

"I honestly don't remember," Newport News admitted, grimacing. "But how do we break this to her? I mean, the sequel trilogy's solid, but..."

"Yeah, the prequel trilogy is a problem," Salem sighed. "And considering she's probably going to expect them to be cinematic masterpieces on par with The Empire Strikes Back, even the sequel trilogy is going to be a disappointment."

"Right..." Newport News muttered. "Which brings us back to how we break this gently..."

"Maybe sequel trilogy first and then prequel trilogy?" Salem suggested.

"WAIT, WHAT?!"

The two heavy cruisers whirled around to see Iowa standing in front of a thoroughly poleaxed Des Moines.

"Yeah, the new bad guy? He's Han and Leia's kid," the battleship said, grinning madly.

"No no no no no no no no..." Des Moines muttered, rocking back and forth on her feet.

"And fuck, that's not even the biggest twist! The main heroine of the whole thing is-"

*BLAM! BLAM! KA-BLAM!*

Iowa rocked back under the weight of 18 8" armor-piercing shells slamming into her.

"That's it!" Newport News shouted. "You're dead!"

"You fuckers wanna go?!" Iowa snarled.

"Hell yes we wanna go!" Salem agreed. "We may not be able to get through that stupid armor belt of yours, but enough HE to the face should fuck up even you!"

"Alright, you little cunts, if that's how you wanna fucking play it..." With that, Iowa summoned her own rigging, 16" guns pointed at the two heavy cruisers. "Turnabout is fucking fair play, amiright?"

They paled. Well-armored though they may have been for heavy cruisers, they were _not_ designed with 16" guns in mind.

"That's what I fucking thought," Iowa smugly stated. "You bitches just don't have the armor to cash the checks your asses are writing. So, run along while I finish up with Des Moines here, alright?"

Salem clenched her fists, her teeth audibly grinding together, while Newport News had tears in her eyes. Well, at least until Hornet rose up out of the floor behind Iowa.

"Hello, Iowa," the carrier whispered into her ear.

"Shitty tits ass motherfucking piss!" Iowa yelped, whirling around. "Don't do that, Hor... net..." The battleship trailed off, noting the skeletal spectres rising above the carrier's shoulders and the fact that she was translucent and floating a few inches off the ground. "Okay, seriously, what the fuck."

"You've been a very naughty girl," Hornet scolded, her voice echoing with a thousand more. "Spoiling Star Wars, and to a fan that hadn't seen anything after Return of the Jedi? That requires... punishment."

A rent opened up in the concrete, skeletal hands dressed in Japanese aviator uniforms bursting out of it to grab at Iowa's legs and shoulders. The battleship tried to fend them off, but they were somehow simultaneously insubstantial and solid enough to grab her. When they started dragging her down into the rent, Iowa lost any semblance of composure or her usual arrogance.

"Hornet, no! P-Please, don't do this!" she wailed as she sank into wherever the specters were coming from. "I'm sorry, alright? I-I'm sorry, I'll never do it again! I'll send chocolates to Des Moines, I'll sit through the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones back to back! Hell, I'll watch the Holiday Special! Just don't do this!"

"I'm afraid that's not good enough, Iowa," Hornet replied as Iowa sank out of sight. "But it's a start. Good job, now I won't kill you at the end." Her grin widened by a few more molars than actually existed in the human mouth. "Though you might wish that I had." And with that, she sank into the floor herself, the rent closing up behind her.

The three Des Moines sisters spent the next several minutes just staring blankly off into the distance. Finally, though, Des Moines broke the silence.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" she shrieked, scooting away on her rear.

"I think we need an old priest and a young priest, stat..." Newport News muttered, not otherwise moving.

Salem, meanwhile, was flipping through a small booklet. "No, no, no, dammit! These are all for witches! Not for... whatever the hell Hornet is!"

"I wanted Iowa punished, but not like this..." Newport News continued.

"SHE'S GONNA DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL!"

"We're dead..." Salem breathed, slumping to the floor. "She's gonna kill us, and drag us to hell, and there's nothing we can do to stop her..."

"What in the world is going on here?"

A very confused South Dakota got no answer, besides all three Des Moines continuing what they had been doing.


	302. Rule 1004

**Rule 1022: Nevada is no longer allowed to cook "atom bomb chili."  
**  
"Step right up!" Nevada announced to the small crowd of shipgirls in front of her. "Step right up if you feel man enough to handle my Atom Bomb chili! The prize is a full American-style refit at Norfolk!"

Most of the shipgirls present were very clearly unwilling to even try. Several were even suffering from watering eyes just from the fumes.

"I'll try it!" announced a voice from the back of the crowd. A Fletcher-class destroyer promptly shouldered her way through the crowd. "USS John Rodgers!"

"Alright, go ahead and give it a shot," Nevada said.

The destroyer stepped forward as Nevada ladled out a bowl. It escaped none of the observers that the bowl was made out of _titanium_. In appearance it was just as bad as in smell; it was pitch black and bubbling like hot tar. John Rodgers gulped audibly, then picked up a spoon, took a scoop, and placed it in her mouth.

"YARGGGGH!" she shrieked, falling onto her back clutching her throat. "MILK! MILK! I NEED MILK! OR BEER!"

~o~

"I got a taste for the hot stuff while I was in Mexico," the Fletcher reported to a harried-looking HMS Resource. "But nothing like this! That 'atom bomb' chili lives up to its name!"

~o~

The destroyer promptly ran screaming, leaving the crowd even more nervous.

"Oh, dear, it appears she couldn't handle the heat," Nevada tittered. "So, anyone else want to try?"

"We'll take up that challenge."

The cruisers Achilles and Nigeria stepped out of the front of the crowd. "Mexican food can get pretty hot, but it has _nothing_ on Indian," the latter proudly proclaimed.

"Alright," Nevada nodded, doling out another bowl.

The two cruisers sat down, took their spoons, and each helped themselves.

~o~

"They say burn victims don't actually feel pain when they're on fire. Apparently, there's enough adrenaline rushing through them that the nerves stop working," Achilles stated through a mouthful of cotton to a rather stunned HMS Resource. "Well, apparently that doesn't work with spice. After about a minute I thought I might die. After five I was worried I might not."

~o~

Slowly, and with great care, each cruiser swallowed, calmly stood up, and ran screaming the way John Rodgers had gone. Before Nevada could even respond, two more cruisers stepped out of the crowd.

"Well, well, it looks like we might finally have a challenge, sister," HMS Dragon stated.

"I'm not so sure," HMS Delhi replied. "Those two? They adopted spice. We were born in it, were nurtured by it. We eat vindaloo for breakfast. We get our phaal extra hot. My curry has been deemed unfit for consumption by human or shipgirl."

"So, we're the Bruce Lees of spice, is what you're saying."

"Precisely."

Silently, Nevada pushed over the two mostly-full bowls, added a little more chili, and then began pulling bottles of beer out of an ice chest and popping them open. The two light cruisers ignored this as they each took a spoonful of the chili.

~o~

"All joking aside, Nigeria and Achilles have a damn good spice tolerance, so I was prepared for it to be hot," Dragon explained to a now thoroughly poleaxed Resource. "I did not expect my gums to suddenly start bleeding lava."

~o~

The two cruisers barely twitched, though astute observers noted that they chewed and swallowed rather quickly. Both immediately reached for the bottles of beer placed in front of them and practically chugged them down.

"Okay, color me impressed, I can actually feel this," Delhi stated, sweat pouring down her brows.

Things proceeded from there. Each spoonful was chewed as little as possible, and then followed up by a chug of beer, which swiftly became two every bite, then three. As they did so, Nevada's expression morphed from barely suppressed glee to dawning horror. Finally, the two cruisers chugged down the last of the chili, then four bottles of beer each, and slammed the bowls down.

"Ha!" Delhi barked. "Done!"

Nevada nodded dimly, handing over the voucher to Dragon. And with that, the two cruisers walked away, chattering happily.

"Are- Are they even human?" Nevada breathed.

~o~

HMS Resource looked at the five shipgirls that had hobbled into her office like they'd just come from a John Wayne movie or sixteen rounds with those sugar-free gummy bears. It was quite the story.

"It should be out of all your systems by now," she reported. "Just... no spice for a week, at least, okay?"

"Agreed," all five chorused, even Delhi and Dragon. Resource saw them out, and then went to track down Nevada, finding her putting the pot of Atom Bomb chili into a refrigerator.

"What in the world did you put in that chili?" she demanded.

Nevada grimaced, and then pulled out a bottle and handed it to Resource, who took one look at the label and paled dramatically.

"Yeah, that's pure capsaicin. 16 million Scoville units," the battleship reported. "One drop in a gallon of water produces something that'd satisfy even Delhi's tastes. I put over a dozen drops in that chili." She grimaced and looked pleadingly at Resource. "How bad?"

"Well, they had an unpleasant night, all of them," Resource stated, handing the bottle back. "And we might need to replace some of the toilets. But overall, they're fine. Nothing permanent."

"Oh, thank God," Nevada breathed. "In hindsight, I really should have expected those spice maniacs to finish those bowls."

"Well, hopefully they've learned their lesson," Resource sighed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to-"

"Resource, help!" Karlsruhe shouted as she helped Koln carry a battered Konigsberg into the food storage. "Konigsberg tried to talk to an ethnic minority again, and you weren't in your office!"

*THUNK!*

Nevada patted Resource on the back as the latter extricated her head from the wall.


	303. Rule 1025

**Rule 1025. While American Ship Girls are legally allowed to hunt in the Continental United States, they are reminded that they must use firearms that are appropriate for the game they are hunting and compliant with state laws.  
**  
Nautilus groaned as the wolfpack she was leading fired their deck guns at a small group of Abyssal transports, Harder having long since cleared out the escorts - and proceeded to score _one_ hit.

"Okay, that's it," she muttered, readying her two 6" guns. "I'm taking these guys on a hunting trip as soon as I can."

~o~

"Okay, everyone, two questions," Nautilus announced to the gathered submarines in front of her. They were on the edge of a game preserve in Texas, and it was deer season. "First, does everyone have their rifles?"

The half-dozen submarines raised their weapons, most of them Garands and 1903 Springfields from their internal armories. How _that_ worked was something Nautilus preferred not to dwell on.

"Okay, good," she said, before turning to one figure that towered over the rest. "Second, what the hell is Texas doing here?"

"Hey, I have a hunting license, too," Texas retorted, hefting her own hunting rifle. "I figured I'd tag along and help you make sure none of your charges got shot in the face."

"Shot in the face, you say?" said Tullibee, who promptly turned her rifle on Sargo and fired.

"Ow, why would you even do that?!" Sargo yelped as the bullet pinged off her skin

Texas immediately yanked the rifle out of Tullibee's hands before she could respond, before slamming the butt against the submarine's skull. "Bad!" she said, slinging the rifle over her shoulder. "I'm holding onto this until we finish."

"Alright, unless any of the rest of you have any bouts of stupidity to get through?" Nautilus asked, drawing innocent looks from Halibut and Haddock and an ongoing facepalm from Harder. "Alright then. Let's get this hunting trip started."

As they proceeded through the woods, Texas and Nautilus would periodically stop and explain their tracking methods, as well as give tidbits about the deer themselves.

"- And they're normally pretty skittish, but get between them and their fawns, and watch out!" Texas stated. "Oh, look, there's one right now!"

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

Texas gaped and Nautilus groaned as Haddock and Halibut fired off their 5" guns. The first shell was apparently an AP round, as it passed through the front of the deer without doing anything more than pulp its entire front. The other was clearly an HE round, as evidenced by the explosion that sent bloody venison everywhere.

"Next time, use the goddamn rifles," Nautilus growled.

"Sorry," Halibut and Haddock chorused.

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said they needed help," Texas remarked, before perking up as she realized that one of their number was missing. "Hey, where's Harder?"

"Right here."

The submarine stepped back into view, dragging an eight-hundred-pound feral hog behind her, half its head gone from what was clearly another HE shell.

"So, are these things legal to hunt?" Harder asked. "Because it charged at me and the .30-06 wasn't doing anything, so..."

"Nah, those are fine," Texas said dismissively. "Goddamn pests..."

"Trust me, the feds and the Texas government would love to be rid of these things," Nautilus elaborated. "They're an ecological disaster and are a nuisance to farmers. And they don't even have the decency to be good eating. So if you see one of those..."

As if on cue, another hog burst out through the underbrush, charging straight for Nautilus. The sub neatly summoned her rigging, fired a 6" HE shell into its face, and sidestepped the headless, chestless body as it slid in.

"Alright, now that that's over with, let's get back to actually using those rifles," Nautilus stated, de-summoning her rigging.


	304. Rule 1027

**Rule 1027. Shipgirls below cruiser class are forbidden from travelling to the following states: Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Alaska.  
**  
The trail began in Seattle, Washington, across the street from a thoroughly unassuming pot store, in a Subway that looked like a hurricane had tumbled through it. The glass counter was shattered, the napkins, utensils, chairs, and other loose items scattered about the store, and every scrap of food was gone. The trail continued down I-5, leaving a steady stream of wrecked convenience stores, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants in its wake, as well as a distressing number of crashed cars, dead deer, and crashed utility poles.

By the time it reached Sacramento, it was practically impossible to stop. The only recourse the California Highway Patrol had was to bait the force into changing direction. North was out of the question, west led to the Bay Area, and south offered the possibility of them not stopping until they hit Mexico, and no one wanted a diplomatic incident on top of everything else. So, they did the only thing they could - sent them up US Route 50 and into one of the loneliest, most remote stretches of highway in the United States, though the devastation in Carson City was incredible.

In hindsight, this was a bad idea.

The three shipgirls that made the trail were currently in the outskirts of Denver.

They're not stopping.

"Gnn!" Iowa grunted as Missouri lazily backhanded her, sending her flying into a (thankfully mostly evacuated) Wal-mart.

"Iowa!" Baltimore shouted from where she was carrying a bus full of people out of the shopping center they were in.

"Iowa'll be okay, Baltimore!" Yorktown shouted from where she was doing the same. "Just get these people out of the way! Go go go!"

Kongo and Prinz Eugen, identical glazed looks in their eyes, chose that moment to walk through the walls of the Papa John's in the shopping center, most of the pizza curiously untouched. Alaska and Guam immediately stepped into the fray, trying to grapple the two foreign shipgirls.

*SLAM!*

It didn't go well for them.

"We're barely even slowing them down!" Alaska griped as she pulled herself out of the shattered pavement. "We're going to lose this shopping center in minutes, and there's a hospital right in their line of advance!"

"Depressing, but accurate," Massachusetts agreed as she ducked in and out of Missouri's telegraphed and impossible accurate punches.

"How the hell is _pot_ , of all things, doing this?!" Oregon City demanded.

"Well, look on the bright side!" Honolulu chimed in. "They've gotta be out of that stuff after three days of cross-country travel!"

As if to punctuate the point, Kongo, Prinz Eugen, and Missouri reached to their pockets. All present tensed, waiting for the explosion-

"BANZAI!"

Only for Johnston, Kidd, and La Vallette to drop out of the sky, molotov cocktails in hand. Each landed on one of the baked shipgirls, thrusting the incendiary devices into said pockets and neatly incinerating the remaining pot, not to mention their clothes.

"That works..." Guam muttered.

For a moment, all three stood stock still, staring at nothing - and then Kidd popped up right between Prinz's legs and pressed an air horn.

*POW!*

Prinz did not slump to the ground when Kongo and Missouri reflexively punched her. No, she flipped, her head going down and feet going up, before she flopped to the ground, unconscious for good this time. And before the two battleships could do anything, Iowa dove back into the fray.

Namely, by landing on Missouri's head and smashing a car over Kongo's head.

"Fucking _stay down_ already," the battleship panted.

~o~

"They're still tallying everything up, but the preliminary damage report has already passed $1 billion."

*THUNK*

"Total casualties include 67 wounded, no dead. ... Correction. 134 wounded, no dead."

*THUNK*

"Kongo, I-19, Prinz Eugen, and Missouri will all need dock work before they can be deployed again, as will Iowa and La Vallette."

*THUNK*

"Oh, and all navy personnel have been banned from the state of Nevada again."

For a moment, Admiral Richardson didn't move, and then he lifted his head and let it fall to his desk again.

*THUNK*

"'Take this promotion!', they said. 'Seattle is lovely!', they said. 'Watch cute shipgirls do cute shipgirl things!', they said," he groaned. "Nobody said anything about inebriated battleships, or firebug light cruisers, or absolutely insane destroyers." He sighed, and shifted his head so that his chin was resting on the wood. "Why is Nevada banning us again?"

"Iku," Saipan, his secretary ship, stated. "They found her sitting on a very satisfied pile of... female entertainers, shall we say, when she detached to go north to Reno instead of east like the other three. Oh, and this was in the middle of the gambling floor of one of the bigger casino hotels."

*THUNK*

~o~

"Wow..." Yuubari breathed.

"I know, right?" Yuubari agreed.

The two Yuubaris were staring at a waddling, round-as-a-beach-ball Akagi, who they'd fed a pot brownie an hour prior. She had proceeded to eat through both her's and the Yuubaris' snack stockpiles, then every vending machine she could get her hands on, and then every grocery store, convenience store, and candy shop she could find nearby. Thank goodness shipgirls were very well paid, else the twin light cruisers would be seriously worried about their bank accounts after paying for all of it.

"She's gotta stop sometime, right?" Yuubari stated as Akagi ate an ice cream cart. Not "ate ice cream from the cart", ate the cart itself, ice cream, metal, umbrella and all.

"You'd think so," Yuubari replied.

The two glanced at each other, and then hefted their protonic containment guns.

"Just to be safe," Yuubari said.

"Agreed."


	305. Rule 1033

**Rule 1033. Do not let Soviet ships replace Kongo's tea with vodka.  
**  
"Hieeeee! Kongo!"

"I'm coming, Hiei!" Kongo called out to her sister as she dashed out of her room, leaving her freshly-brewed pot of tea behind. A few seconds after that, the Russian cruiser shipgirl Lazar Kaganovich poked her head into the room, grinning at the conspicuous lack of Kongo and the unguarded pot of tea. Reaching behind her, she pulled out an identical steaming pot out of... somewhere, and quickly swapped it out for the one on the table. The only difference was that the new kettle was filled with steaming vodka, not tea.

Giggling lightly to herself, Lazar Kaganovich turned to leave, only to have to suppress a scream when she nearly ran into Hibiki.

"Jesus fuck, Verniy, you scared the crap out of me!" she softly admonished in Russian.

"That was the point," Hibiki said, more emotion in her voice than usual, in this case worried concern. "Listen, Lazar, I seriously suggest you turn around and put that pot of tea back where it belongs."

Lazar's eyes narrowed in hostile suspicion. "Are you threatening me?"

Hibiki immediately shook her head in denial. "Oh, no no no. But I know Kongo. Her wrath when her tea is threatened is _legendary_. Ask the Rock Fortress Princess." An uncharacteristic smirk spread across her face. "Oh, wait, you can't, because she hasn't shown her face since Kongo smashed her last attempt at an attack on Gibraltar."

The Russian cruiser let out a snort of derision. "Bah! I'm not enamored with that old hunk of scrap like you Japanese are! I'd like to see her try."

Hibiki shrugged and turned to leave. "Your funeral."

~o~

Kongo sighed as she plopped back down in her chair. Honestly, some days she wondered if she was the _sanest_ of her sisters, which was a rather terrifying thought. Reaching out to touch her pot of tea, she was pleased to note that it was at least still warm. She grabbed the kettle and began pouring into a cup, though the liquid didn't much look like tea. Or smell like tea. Frowning, she put it to her lips - and immediately spat out the small tithe that had touched her tongue.

 _"WHO DARES?"_ she thundered.

"That would be Lazar Kaganovich. Fifth of the Kirov class and one of two cruisers the Russians have in the Far East."

Kongo turned her gaze on Hibiki, and it took all of the destroyer's willpower to not let any of her fear show. "Kaganovich, hmm? Well, it seems I must pay a visit to Vladivostok."

"A suggestion!" Hibiki piped up. "Replace her vodka with tea. She hates the stuff, and worships vodka almost to the level you worship tea."

"Heresy and idolatry, too?" Kongo said, adopting a thoughtful look. "Still, your idea has merit, young Hibiki. I shall take it into consideration."

With that, the battleship left for Vladivostok, leaving Hibiki to slump against the wall.

" _Bozhe moi_ , the things I do for you girls," she groaned, pulling out her trusty flask and chugging the contents.


	306. Rule 1043

**Rule 1043. Why, in the name of all that is holy, did that destroyer try to use one of Arizona's spare turrets? She's going to be out of action for a few months while the shipyard tries to figure out how to fix the shipgirl equivalent of a shattered keel.  
**  
"Heheheheh... guess what I found~?" Kiyoshimo sang.

"I don't know, what?" Asashimo sighed.

"Your next words are going to be, 'One of Arizona's old gun turrets!'," Hayashimo drawled.

"One of Arizona's old gun turrets!" Kiyoshimo answered at almost the same time. "Ah! How did you-?!"

"Because you're as transparent as a polished sheet of glass?" Asashimo snarked.

"Oh, shut up!" Kiyoshimo snapped. "I'm gonna test-fire this turret, and I'm gonna become a battleship, and I'm going to laugh at all you nay-sayers!"

"Yeah, you have fun with that," Asashimo stated, waving her sister ship away.

Kiyoshimo huffed angrily and stomped out, and the other two destroyers returned to what they had been doing. At least, for the few minutes it took for them to process what Kiyoshimo had said.

"Did she say test fire?!" Hayashimo yelped in a rare display of emotion.

*BANG!*

Both destroyers scrambled to their feet at the sound of a heavy gun firing, accompanied by the voice of Kiyoshimo.

"Ha! You call that breaking my spine?" she shouted. "You dinky little American guns couldn't break my spine if you-!"

Hayashimo and Asashimo burst outside just in time to see Kiyoshimo fire the starboard 14" gun - which promptly twisted her torso around an even 180 degrees with a sickening snap.

"AGH, MY SPINE!" she wailed.

~o~

"I've never seen anything like it," Akashi told Admiral Goto. "Her entire torso above the waist is twisted around 180 degrees, her spine is in two different places, and yet she's alive when neither human nor ship anatomy tells us she should."

"So, MSSB?" Goto confirmed.

"Exactly. As for the proposal..." The repair ship shrugged. "Well. It's sufficiently out there that I figured I should present it in person."

"I'll say," Goto muttered. "Cutting her in half and putting her back together the right way?"

"Two words, sir: HMS Zubian."

"Point taken." Reaching out, he grabbed his Big Stamp of Admiralty Approval (TM) and smacked it against the paper. "Approved. Get her back onto the front lines as soon as you can."

"Yes sir."

 **AN: MSSB stands for Magical Sparkly Shipgirl Bullshit, FYI.**


	307. Rule 1046

**Rule 1046. Yugoslav shipgirls are not allowed to remove kebab.  
**  
"Alright, you guys understand the plan, right?" Dubrovnick said to the three other destroyers of the former Yugoslav navy, now the core of the Croatian Navy's escort forces.

"Yes, ma'am!" Beograd, Ljubljana, and Zagreb barked. "On your signal, remove kebab!"

"Good!" Dubrovnick replied, before looking back out on her targets. The Turkish destroyers Adatepe and Kocatepe were moving through a market in Izmir doing some window shopping. They were distracted, but not distracted enough. For this to work, they needed total surprise.

And then a stream of cats started walking across the street.

 _'That'll do,'_ Dubrovnik decided. She took a deep breath, and shouted, "REMOVE KEBAB!", before charging onto the street after the Turkish destroyers. To her gratification, both of them seemed utterly stunned to see her. This was going great! And then she realized that she hadn't heard the rest of her destroyers behind her.

She skidded to a halt, turning around to see Beograd, Ljubljana, and Zagreb in a nearby kebab shop stuffing their faces, the owner happily counting the large stack of Euros the three destroyers had slammed onto his counter.

"What are you doing?!" she shrieked, clutching at her head.

"What?" mumbled Zagreb through a mouthful of meat. "You said 'remove kebab', right? We're removing the kebabs!"

"I didn't mean actual kebabs!" Dubrovnik shot back. "You were supposed to help me beat up those stupid Turks!"

"You just said 'remove kebab'!" Zagreb replied. "Like, that was literally your whole plan! Just 'remove kebab!' How were we supposed to take that any way but literally?"

"Listen, you stupid little-!"

"Hey."

Dubrovnik froze, and slowly turned around to see Yavuz Sultan Selim standing over her in casual clothes, a shit-eating grin on her face.

"O-Oh, hey, Y-Yavuz," Dubrovnik stammered. "H-How long have you been there?"

"I've been here the whole time," the battlecruiser replied, prompting Dubrovnik to sweat even more. "'Remove kebab', huh? Where'd you get that one? Shitty Polandball comics - though I repeat myself - or straight from the source?"

"I-I, uh..."

"Regardless," Yavuz continued. "It seems you are in need of some... re-education. Why don't we start on the Kosovo Wars documentaries and go from there?"

Dubrovnik whimpered. Knowing Yavuz, she'd pick the ones that didn't pull _any_ punches at all.

"Carry on, girls!" Yavuz called out to the rest of the destroyers, before grabbing Dubrovnik by the ear and dragging her off.

Turkish and Yugoslav destroyers alike spent the next minute or so staring in surprise at the exiting battlecruiser before Beograd stuck her plate out towards Kocatepe. "Kebab?"

"Got any lamb?" she asked, her sister following her as she joined the Yugoslav destroyers in pigging out.


	308. Rule 1049

**Rule 1049. For those who gave Musashi and Jersey soy burgers, they want a word with you./Rule 1050. White is not allowed to coerce Musashi and Jersey (or anyone else) by withholding the special burger sauce she has (we know it's Biff Burger sauce).  
**  
"Ugh... fucking jet lag..." Musashi groaned as she stumbled along after New Jersey through San Diego.

"Yeah, I hear ya," the other battleship replied. "Jet lag sucks rancid donkey balls. C'mon, let's get some food into you, it'll help."

The two battleships soon found themselves in the cafeteria, prompting Musashi to give New Jersey an incredulous look.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I promised the best burgers Southern California has to offer," New Jersey said. "But you're not gonna enjoy the burgers if you're all jetlagged like that. We'll go in tomorrow once you're recovered. Besides, given what the cooks have to work with, it's a goddamn miracle they make their burgers taste as good as they do."

"Let's just get this over with," Musashi grumbled, stepping forward into the short line. Soon, their trays were stacked high with fresh steaming burgers, and they sat down, each taking a burger and biting down.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" New Jersey immediately shouted, spitting out the offending bite.

"ARE THESE FUCKING VEGGIE BURGERS?!" Musashi demanded.

"What, you didn't hear?" Louisville said as she walked by. "Everything in the cafeteria is vegetarian today. They had emails and fliers and everything."

Musashi shot a glare at New Jersey, who for her part looked almost ready to explode.

"I didn't get those," she grit out. "Who was in charge of alerting everyone?"

"Well, Wright was gonna do it, but then her carpal tunnel began acting up and she passed it on to Indianapolis, but then she had to go to a shark-hunting conference, so South Dakota took it up, but then she blew herself up so Missouri took over."

New Jersey sat stock still, staring at Louisville, for almost a minute, before surging to her feet. "Alright, Musashi, let's go see if White's cooking up anything."

"Wait, what?!" Musashi snapped. "What about this sin against burgers? We need to-!"

"Musashi," New Jersey said, cutting off the Japanese battleship's protests. "Missouri doesn't get into these moods very often, but when she does, you take it like a fucking man, because otherwise she escalates, and Admiral Holloway gives her a ton of leeway."

Musashi blinked, then grinned. "Sounds like there's a story there."

"All you need to know is that it involves Iowa being her usual self, five hundred pounds of saran wrap, a plastic squeaky mallet, two tons of cottage cheese, and a sheep's bladder," New Jersey replied, shuddering. "God, I still have the nightmares..."

"Right..." Musashi drawled. "And White is...?"

~o~

"Oh, sure! I was just about to make a batch!" USS White Plains chirped.

Musashi stared at the small, squat escort carrier, who was currently finagling a ball of ground beef almost as big as she was into manageable patties. "Huh. I wasn't expecting that."

"White makes the best goddamn burgers out there," New Jersey stated, before pausing and reconsidering. "Okay, maybe not Awful Awful level, but a close second!"

"Though, I'm out of the special burger sauce," White continued, tapping her chin. "Ah, well. I can make them without it, and I do have one with the sauce left."

New Jersey paled dramatically at that news. "Oh no," she whimpered. "No! You gotta make more sauce, White!"

The other battleship raised an eyebrow. "It's a sauce," she deadpanned. "I think the burger'll be fine without it."

"You don't understand, Musashi," New Jersey breathed. "The burgers are fine without the sauce, but... look, you gotta eat them to know."

Jersey grabbed two burgers off the stack White Plains had already made, the little escort carrier done with the meat and now off setting up her griddle. "This one's got the sauce," the battleship said, holding up one of the burgers. "And this one doesn't." She held out the non-sauce burger. "Here, try this one first."

Musashi, a skeptical expression on her face, took the proferred burger, and bit into it. Almost immediately, a wave of flavor and texture struck her: fresh, ice-cold lettuce, juicy tomato with _actual flavor_ , a thick patty cooked just right to send its juices cascading over her tongue, spongy buns toasted in butter. And the cheese; this was no rubbery American cheese, this was true Wisconsin white cheddar, that complemented every other flavor.

"So good..." Musashi moaned.

"I know, right?" New Jersey agreed, before holding out the other burger. "Now try this one."

The Japanese battleship didn't waste any time before biting into the burger. It was... if the previous burger was a wave of flavor, this was a _bomb_. Every flavor was still there, but it was enhanced beyond measure. But the sauce did more than enhance. Tangy ketchup, sharp mustard, pickle relish, infused with a delightful smoky taste and an armor-piercing bomb of a spice blend. As Musashi swallowed, she suddenly found herself standing on the water, her rigging up, and Helldiver and Avenger planes streaking towards her, burgers slung under their bellies instead of bombs and torpedoes.

 _'Ah... so good...'_ she moaned as the burgers struck.

Musashi blinked, appearing back in the real world to find New Jersey nodding approvingly and the burger gone.

"Now do you see why White needs to make that sauce?" the American battleship stated.

"Yes..." Musashi moaned, her face flushed. "Oh my God, that was..."

"Burgers up!" White chirped, sweeping in with a full tray. The two battleships dove for the platter-

And White neatly hopped up above them. "Ah ah ah," she admonished, wagging her finger back and forth. "I had to make more sauce for these, so I'm going to need you two to do me a favor."

"ANYTHING!" New Jersey and Musashi chorused.

Were the two battleships any less desperate, the grin that spread over White Plains' face - which, incidentally, put to rest any idea that she _wasn't_ a Taffy 3 ship - would have left them terrified.

~o~

Louisville raised an eyebrow as New Jersey skated up to her in a rather short French maid outfit, looking just a tad miserable and constantly tugging at the admittedly very short skirt. "Your order!" she chirped. Chirped!

"I'll take a Four-Stacker, extra sauce, with a basket of cajun fries," the cruiser said, staring unashamedly at New Jersey. "I hope it was worth it, what it was."

An expression of utter bliss spread across her face. "Yes..." she breathed. "Yes it was..."


	309. Rule 1059

**Rule 1059. If you punch Fubuki because she was annoying the rest of Fubuki class are gonna do something very horrible to you.  
**  
Furutaka groaned as she looked into her email inbox at another email from Fubuki. The destroyer had been bugging her for two weeks about meeting her to go over her financial records by email and phone. It was annoying in the extreme. She had things under control, dammit! Stop bugging her! Grumbling under her breath, she clicked the email and tossed it into the trash - right as a knock came at the door to the room she shared with Kako.

"I've got it!" her sister called out. "Oh, hey, Fubuki! What's up?"

Furutaka groaned and stood as Fubuki and Kako went into small talk. That's it, if she was showing up in her room for this shit then that overpromoted tin can needed to be put in her place.

"-really do need to talk to Furutaka," she heard Fubuki say as she got closer. "There are some anomalies that-"

Furutaka interrupted the destroyer by punching her in the face, all of her 102,000 horsepower behind it. Fubuki went flying, and hit the wall, shattering the concrete and slumping to the ground with a spreading bruise on her cheek.

"Stop bugging me already!" Furutaka shouted, slamming the door behind her.

"I don't think you should've done that..." Kako muttered as Furutaka stalked back to her computer seat and plopped back into it. "Fubuki's nice! And she's got a lot of sisters!"

"She's an annoyance. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

~o~

Waking came slowly to Furutaka, though not slowly enough that she missed Nicholas and Murakumo looming over her, the "go go go" sound affects practically visible, nor the heavy chains keeping her tied to a chair.

"Uh, hi girls," she nervously greeted. "What's up?"

"Don't 'what's up' us, Furutaka," Murakumo growled. "We know what you did."

If Furutaka was nervous before, now she was on the verge of outright panic. "I-Is this about Fubuki?"

"Yes," Nicholas stated, only a hint of an accent in her Japanese. "No one, but no one, hits our mother and comes away intact."

"And an attack on one of our sisters is an attack on us all," Murakumo added.

The two destroyers stepped back, and Furutaka audibly gulped as nearly two hundred pairs of eyes stared down at her.

"W-What are you going to do to me?" she whimpered.

One of the destroyers, a Fletcher, stood up and walked up to her. Furutaka's dread mounted as she took in the profile: the coke-bottle lenses, extensive freckles, hair drawn up in two braids.

"We're gonna be sortie buddies!" William D. Porter chirped. "Isn't that gonna be _fun?_ "

It was all Furutaka could do to not faint on the spot.

~o~

"Well, that's taken care of," Nicholas stated as Willy D. steamed away with Furutaka in tow. "I heard there was another issue...?"

"Yeah," Murakumo grimaced. "Tirpitz has apparently claimed Fubuki as her 'waifu boat'. And yes, it means exactly what it sounds like."

Nicholas clenched her fists and opened her mouth to say exactly what she thought of that-

"WHAT?!"

"Oh, hi Mutsuki," Murakumo groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"That stupid German harlot!" the other destroyer raged. "Fubuki is mine, you hear me?! Mine!"

"Poi!" Yuudachi contributed.

"Where did you two even come from?!" Nicholas yelped.

"Don't question it," Murakumo replied as the other two destroyers stormed off to find plane tickets to Norway. "Besides, those two are the perfect punishment for Tirpitz."

"I dunno, I think we should also get Aoba in on that," Nicholas said. At the confused look Murakumo sent her, Nicholas tutted and shook her head. "C'mon, the Lonely Queen of the North versus the Nightmare of the Solomons? People will be throwing money at the screen to watch that."

Murakumo turned that idea over. "I'll give her a call."


	310. Rule 1061

**Rule 1061. Enterprise, lose the throne and the captive Abyssals.  
**  
It was beautiful day off the California coast. The sun was shining, the sea fog had burned off to leave a clear blue sky, and Enterprise was parked on an inflatable raft in a bikini near the Santa Catalina islands, soaking up the sun.

"Ah..." she sighed. "This is the life."

She heard a loud splashing sound, and leaned up and pushed up her sunglasses to see one of those new Ke-class submarines with their battleship guns in front of her, gun muzzle six inches from her face.

"Oh, you've got to be-" she began before two large hands grabbed her float, flipped her out of it, and dragged her underwater.

~o~

"That inconsiderate, reckless _jackass!_ " Yamato howled. "'Oh, look at me, I'm the big bad Enterprise, I'mma go sunbathe _miles_ away from any help'. Of course she got kidnapped, if she's that stupid!"

"There aren't many places the Abyssals could have taken her," Yorktown stated as she and Admiral Holloway pored over a map of the Pacific and known Abyssal concentrations, pointedly ignoring Yamato and her moods, both of which were swinging faster than one of those pendulum rides. "Hawaii, the Marshalls. Maybe the Marianas, but that would require them holding onto her for several days, and I don't think they're gonna risk that."

"Mm. It's too bad we've been smashing their forward bases as soon as they popped up," Holloway nodded. "Otherwise we could hit one of those."

"E, please, why?" Yamato wailed. "You know I can't live without you!"

"Sir, an updated list of Abyssal bases."

"Thank you, ensign." Holloway quickly looked it over, his eyes widening. "Okay, that's way more than I expected."

Yorktown peeked over, and her eyes widened as well. "Jesus, how are we supposed to find her?"

"I will find the Abyssals, and _make_ them tell me where she is!" Yamato proclaimed, before storming out the door.

Yorktown and Holloway blinked, and then exchanged thought glances.

~o~

"Where," Yamato growled, holding a thoroughly terrified Ru-class battleship by the throat.

~o~

"Is," Northampton snarled as she kept the Heavy Cruiser Princess pinned underneath her.

~o~

"Enterprise!" Zuikaku shouted to the Wo-class carrier she'd slammed against the side of the LHD USS America.

~o~

Yorktown groaned and massaged her temples. A week of intensive operations later, and they were no closer to finding out where Enterprise had been taken. They'd killed plenty of Abyssals and smashed their bases, but no E. And some of the more... enthusiastic searchers were getting antsy. She shuddered. What Northampton had done to that Heavy Cruiser Princess... ugh.

At this rate, she half expected William D. Porter to stumble over her or something.

~o~

William D. Porter stared at the scene in front of her. Sitting on a massive iron throne that seemed to be made of scrap metal was Enterprise, still clad in the bikini and sunglasses she'd been wearing the day she'd been kidnapped. The throne rested on massive pontoons, and was pulled by a pair of I-class destroyers. The weirdest thing, though, was the Aircraft Carrier Princess on hands and knees in front of Enterprise, wearing a collar with a chain leading back to Enterprise's hand - and nothing else.

[Ah, Master, should I...?] the Abyssal offered demurely.

"Nah, it's just Willy D.," Enterprise replied. "Hey, Willy! Sorry it took so long, had to finish a few things before I left." One hand snaked down to pet the Abyssal's hair. "Let Yamato know we have a live-in maid now, alright?"

Faced with this scene, William D. Porter said the only thing she could.

"What."


	311. Rule 1066

**Rule 1066. Can we please keep battle re-enactments to sea warfare? The English and French naval ships have been barred from any further re-enactments of the Battle of Hastings.  
**  
Admirals Collingwood, Cunningham, and Masson glared at the kneeling, contrite, mail-clad and rather battered forms of three of their shipgirls. King George V had a tungsten carbide sabot sticking out of her right eye, while Argus and Richelieu were merely bruised all over.

"Let me see if I've got this right," Admiral Collingwood groaned. "You all decided to do a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings on the anniversary. And you decided to be as historically accurate as possible."

The three shipgirls nodded.

"And when you looked into the unit compositions, you noticed that the Normans had way more archers than the English, so the carriers had to go to the Norman side," Admiral Cunningham picked up.

Another round of nods.

"But you still didn't have enough archers, so someone got the bright idea to call Gneisenau and get some _tank turrets_ from where the Germans socked them away," Admiral Masson continued, her voice rising slightly.

"Oh, we got that one from Leeds," Argus said, speaking of one of the ex-American four-stackers that had been inexplicable summoned as Royal Navy ships. "She heard from Samuel B. Roberts that sabots are basically like arrows against shipgirls."

"And then...?" Collingwood prompted.

All three shipgirls closed their eyes...

 _"W-What is that thing?!"_

 _"... That's a horse."_

 _"Georgie, Repulse stabbed herself again!"_

"As it turns out," Richelieu sighed. "Most shipgirls are _not_ suited to fighting on land, let alone in a medieval context."

"It got messy fast," King George V said in a classically British understatement.

Collingwood and Cunningham nodded sagely, while Masson quirked an eyebrow and glanced outside, where Resource had set up an impromptu aid station to tend to the mass of injured shipgirls - and several veterinarians were tending to injured horses.

"Messy," she deadpanned.

"Well, yes," King George V said, before glancing at Admiral Collingwood. "By the way, since my optics need repair anyway, can I get some of those really good German-"

"No," Collingwood interrupted. "Also, you're sleeping on the couch tonight while I think of an appropriate punishment."

"We only have one more question," Masson stated. "There was an Abyssal force that landed near the Scottish border, what happened to it?"

"We smashed it and then headed south immediately," King George V replied. "Y'know, for historical accuracy. Those things just can't resist some Swiss good chocolate."

All three admirals blanched at that.

 _"You_ lured _the Abyssals there?!"_ they roared in unison.

"I told you that was a bad idea..." Richelieu grumbled.


	312. Rule 1071

**Rule 1071: After the incident in the bay, all Kanmusu are required to be certified in basic swimming - without the use of your rigging.  
**  
"So, what does this thing do?" Phoenix asked as she helped South Dakota set up a large piece of machinery the battleship had shanghaied her into carrying out onto the docks.

"Well, it's supposed to deactivate a shipgirl's rigging," the battleship stated. "Within a certain radius, of course. If it works, it could be a battle-turning weapon."

Phoenix nodded. If it worked on Abyssals, they could easily dunk them into the drink for an easy win. "Well, I, for one, think that it's a great idea. How're we going to do this?"

"See them?" South Dakota said, pointing out to the shipgirls floating in San Diego Bay. "If this is up to spec, I just turn it on and they'll all fall in the water." And with that, she flicked a switch.

The effect was immediate. All six of the shipgirls on the water - La Vallette, William D. Porter, Bunker Hill, Harder, Pensacola, and a visiting Iku - fell into the water with a surprised yelp. Willy D. and Iku immediately surfaced again - and the other four didn't.

Both mad scientists glanced at each other with wide eyes as Willy D. and Iku dove back underwater. "Wait... they can't _swim?!_ " Phoenix incredulously demanded.

"Less talking, more helping!" South Dakota shouted, kicking off her shoes and diving into the water, Phoenix following. They soon got to where the shipgirls had gone down, just in time to take a hacking and coughing La Vallette and Bunker Hill off of their rescuers' hands. They reached the shore, deposited their cargo, looked them over, and after concluding that they weren't in any danger of drowning, turned their gazes back onto the bay. Iku had surfaced with Harder - who looked none worse for the wear; damn submarines - and Pensacola, who was quite conspicuously not breathing.

"I'll-" South Dakota began as she surged forwards to take the heavy cruiser off of Willy D.'s hands.

"I got this!" Iku interjected as she unceremoniously dumped Harder onto the beach. Reaching down, her hands grasped Pensacola's breasts.

"Behave!" Willy D. barked, smacking Iku upside the head.

"Aww, fine," the submarine whined, before reaching down and actually doing proper chest compressions, followed up with mouth-to-mouth. Luckily, it wasn't long before Pensacola spat out a stream of water that reached almost ten feet in the air. With the crisis over, recriminations could begin.

"What did you do?!" Bunker Hill demanded of South Dakota and Phoenix.

"What makes you think we did anything?" South Dakota denied, looking shifty-eyed.

"Dakota, you suck at lying. Let me handle this," Phoenix said. "We were testing something that would remove a shipgirls' rigging-"

"To sink Abyssals, I'm guessing?" La Vallette cut in. "That's kind of a stupid idea, y'know? It'll sink all the shipgirls nearby, too."

Both mad scientists froze in place.

"Didn't think of that, did'ja?" Bunker Hill smirked.

"Oh, shut up!" Phoenix shot back. "At least we can _swim_ , unlike you morons!"

"Hey-!" La Vallette started to protest, only to be interrupted by Willy.

"She has a point, you know," she said as she wiped down her glasses. "We're _ships_ who fight on the _sea_ for a living. We should know how to swim."

"Yeah, well, there's, like, alligators and snakes and stuff in the water," Pensacola whined. "Or trees or- do you know how many things there are in the water that could kill you?"

"You're a ship, Pensacola," South Dakota groaned, palming her face. "Besides, we're not in Florida anymore, in case you couldn't tell!"

"Yeah, well... shut up!"


	313. Rule 1074

**Rule 1074. I don't know how which ever one of you did it and I don't want to know. Just get those cows off the roof of the headquarters building.  
**  
Admiral Briggs groaned and stretched his arms as he headed for the exit of the headquarters building in Norfolk. Another long day of wrangling shipgirls demanded a visit to the massage parlor he frequented, followed by a round of drinks with some of the other senior officers, and then a good night's sleep. Lost in his thoughts, he opened the door-

And then something wet, grainy, and very, very smelly landed on his head.

Thankfully, the brim of his hate prevented any from getting in his eyes, but it did nothing for the disgusting warm moisture trickling down his neck and back. Tilting his head back and letting most of the substance splat against the ground, he looked up at the swishing tail and rear end of a cow. He then glanced down at the remains of a cow pie on the ground.

"I swear to God, _someone_ is dying for this," he growled, before turning on his heel and re-entering headquarters for a change of clothes and a shower.

As he stepped out, rubbing his hair dry with a towel, he noted that the stalls had filled up while he was cleaning up, and the women's side was emitting a steady sound of falling water. Quickly dressing, he hurried off to find someone to get the cows off the roof.

~o~

"Last one!" Brooklyn called out as she balanced the last of the cows on her shoulder.

"Alright, pass it down!" Savannah called back. The older cruiser heaved the cow into the air, Savannah bending her legs to absorb the force of over a thousand pounds of beef landing in her arms.

"Good work, girls," Admiral Briggs announced as New York herded them away - and hadn't _that_ skill been a surprise. "All that's left is to find out who did this."

"I... think I might have an idea," New York reluctantly admitted.

"Oh?" Briggs said, turning around. "Who?"

"Okay, see, I've been sending these Texas longhorns to, well, Texas," New York stated, looking sheepish. "Taught them how to talk, which was _not_ easy, to try and coax her out of retirement. I... guess she got tired of it and decided to retaliate."

Admiral Briggs blinked, befuddled. "Wait, _how?!"_ he eventually demanded. "She's been in Houston all day! I checked! And how could she get the cows up there without anyone noticing?! They weren't there this morning!"

"I don't know what to tell you, Admiral," New York sighed. "Well, other than the fact that Texas is the most likely culprit."

Unbeknownst to man and shipgirl, a figure who'd been watching the proceedings from a nearby rooftop ducked back down before pulling out her phone.

"Texas," USS Welles said as soon as the call picked up. "It's done."

 _"Good work, Welles,"_ the battleship answered.

"And the payment?" the destroyer pressed.

 _"Yes, yes, just drop by within the next week, okay? I'll have it ready by then."  
_  
Welles hastily wiped away a bit of drool that had been dripping from the corner of her mouth. Ribs, brisket, all the sides she could want... and her ice cream. Oh, her homemade ice cream and apple pie and...

"I'll be there," she moaned, the drool back and stronger than ever.


	314. Rule 1077

**Rule 1077. No more games of "Strip Battleship".**

"Soo… wanna play Battleship again?" Amsterdam asked.

"I dunno, I'm kind of tired of the vanilla game again," Montpelier replied from where she was staring at a computer screen.

The two Clevelands were in the same lounge where they and Birmingham had conceived of "Extreme Battleship" so many months ago. Though the Admiral had approved a modified version involving Japanese-style rocket launchers filled with paint, both of them remembered Holloway's wrath when he had found out about the original round, and neither wanted to repeat the experience.

"Maybe it's time to try the 'extreme' version again…" Amsterdam tentatively suggested.

"It was fun while it lasted," Montpelier mused, before sighing and shutting down the computer. "Aw, dammit, now I've got an idea to spice it up again."

Amsterdam closed the magazine she'd been reading for good, shooting her sister a wary glance. "Monty…"

"No property damage involved this time, I swear to God."

Amsterdam mulled that over for a second before nodding. "Let's hear it, then."

"Alright, I need you to picture this," Montpelier said. "It's a bit of an odd image. Close your eyes and imagine… Strip Battleship."

The other light cruiser scrunched up her face in thought, blushed furiously, and then went back to thoughtful. "Wait, that doesn't work," Amsterdam said. "If it's by ships sunk it's too slow and only merits five pieces, and if it's by hit or miss that's _too_ many pieces."

"Yeah, which is why _my_ idea has the _pieces_ getting stripped," Montpelier explained.

Amsterdam opened her mouth to object, and then closed it. "I wouldn't mind seeing that," she admitted. "But who'd be crazy enough to consent to that sort of thing?"

~o~

Amsterdam and Montpelier shook their heads as they looked out over the water of San Diego Bay. As it turns out, there were plenty of shipgirls willing to consent to a game of "strip Battleship". Amsterdam had gotten Iowa, Franklin, Pensacola, Stickleback, and Parrott, while Montpelier got Alabama, Cowpens, Miami, Diablo, and Alden. To the surprise of both cruisers, their participants had shown up in exactly the right amount of clothing to leave them naked once "sunk": a t-shirt over their usual bikinis for the submarines, their full outfits for both carriers, and then their usual outfits with progressively less for the lighter ships. Iowa and Alabama had ditched their socks, Miami and Pensacola had gone braless, and as Alden and Parrott had enthusiastically demonstrated, the destroyers weren't wearing any underwear at all.

"Damn it, why do destroyers have to all look like kids even when they were over twenty years old by the time the war started?" Montpelier grumbled. "I feel like I should be looking for Chris Hansen under my bed tonight."

"Let's just get this game started," Amsterdam sighed as she finished putting her ship pieces in place. "D-2."

"Miss."

And so the game began, each cruiser probing the other's board. It only took a few minutes for the first hit to be registered by Amsterdam on Cowpens.

"Oh dear," the light carrier mock-whined over the camera feed they'd all set up. "I got hit. Now I need to take something off." Reaching down, instead of grabbing her socks, Cowpens grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. And- oh dear, that was a string bikini top, not a normal bra. Grinning, Cowpens carelessly tossed the shirt into the air, letting it flutter away on the wind.

The next hit was by Montpelier, getting Stickleback right in the middle of her game piece. The submarine grinned, and like Cowpens didn't go for the safe option of removing her shirt. No, she reached down and removed her bikini bottoms before going right back to standing on the water, taunting the other team, part of her butt fully visible to the spectators.

When the third hit, on Miami this time, prompted their sister to remove her panties instead of outergarments - which, notably, drew an annoyed scowl from Cowpens - Montpelier and Amsterdam knew something was up.

"Well, now we know why they were all so eager to participate," Amsterdam mused.

"Yeah, just our luck that so many shipgirls on this base are fucking exhibitionists," Montpelier grumbled.

Things continued in this vein for several more rounds until Montpelier got the second hit on Iowa. The battleship smirked and practically tore off her shirt, and with her bra removed with the first hit, everyone got an eyeful of her massive fuel tanks.

"Holy crap…" Montpelier breathed.

"It wiggles and jiggles…" Amsterdam added.

Iowa struck a pose, leaning forward to let her breasts hang down, shit-eating grin still in place. The two cruisers just stared for several minutes before a trickle of blood from her nose caught Amsterdam's attention.

"We, uh… we should probably get back to the game," she stammered out, hastily wiping away any evidence of the nosebleed.

"Yeah, yeah we should," Montpelier agreed.

~o~

Admiral Holloway cracked his back as the staff car he was in pulled up to the docks at Naval Base San Diego. The Congresscritters had been less hair-pullingly aggravating than usual, to the point he had only popped one antacid before they agreed to his budget instead of the usual three. Now he was looking forward to some relaxat-

The car screeched to a sudden halt moments before running over the head of an insensate shipgirl. As the driver sat, befuddled, Holloway took in the scene in front of him: half of San Diego's shipgirl complement passed out on the concrete, the other half staring out onto the water in stunned amazement. Oh, and Enterprise with a bloody nose babbling into her phone.

And it wasn't hard to see why. Out on the water were ten shipgirls covered in white and red paint - and with two shining exceptions, nothing else. Well. Make that one exception, as Pensacola took a paint rocket to the face before slipping off her skirt; only Alden remained "dressed", and that was a stretch, considering she was wearing only a shirt like some of those Japanese destroyers, and unlike theirs this one wasn't long enough to cover anything.

Oh, and on the bridge to Coronado he could see countless camera phones flashing.

For a moment, Admiral Holloway didn't think the situation could get any worse. And then, at some unspoken signal, one half of the waterbound group pounced on the other, Alden in particular grabbing Iowa's large assets and squeezing enthusiastically.

"Why me…?" he groaned as several more shipgirls passed out in fountains of blood.

~o~

Montpelier and Amsterdam stared with wide eyes at both the carnage below and the ongoing slap fight out on the water.

"We must seal this technique," Montpelier intoned. "It must never be see the light of day again."

"Agreed, sister," Amsterdam replied.

~o~

 _Several Hundred Miles North_

"Wait, I'm getting something!" Damato reported.

West Virginia's gaze hardened. The Gearing-class destroyer had been one of a handful to be summoned in their FRAM-I condition, and they relied heavily on her to provide ASW. "What do you hear?" she called back.

"Um… _[Come on, let's get up there already!]_ "

Stares accompanied that proclamation, to which Damato only shrugged. "I hear sound, there are two Abyssals speaking underwater. Do the math. Oh, wait, there's more. _[But I don't wanna!]_ "

"What type, Damato?" West Virginia barked.

"Definitely not submarines!" the destroyer reported. "I think they're heavy surface combatants of some kind!"

"Surface formation!" WeeVee barked, her companions shifting into position.

"Another message! _[Come on, it's sure to work, after what happened in San Diego!]_ " Damato sent a curious glance at her flagship. "Did something happen in San Diego?"

"Not that I know of."

" _[Argh, fine!]_ "

As if on cue, a Ta-class battleship burst out of the water - and it was wearing absolutely _nothing at all._ To further compound the surreal image, a Re-class surfaced behind the first Abyssal, and reached out and _fondled the first's breasts_. Everything froze, the Re-class staring expectantly.

"What," West Virginia finally managed to get out.

"Ahh! You will not corrupt me, you perverts!" Maryland suddenly yelled out, firing her 16" guns point-blank at the two battleships, who for their part yelped and scattered.

"After them!" Colorado barked in place of the still-stunned West Virginia.

[That never works!] the Ta-class yelped.

[It should've worked!] the Re-class shot back. [Dammit, we only get one pervert, and it has to be fucking _Maryland_ , of all ships!]


	315. Rule 1084

**Rule 1084. It's been said before, but you only get maternity leave if you're actually pregnant. There are actual medical tests to prove whether or not you're lying.  
**  
"Admiral?"

Admiral Cunningham looked up from his paperwork at HMS Enterprise. The light cruiser was practically the spitting image of USS Enterprise, though smaller and wearing a different outfit. It had been surprisingly unsurprising that she had subsequently gotten hitched with Yamato's light cruiser clone and self-proclaimed samurai protector, Yahagi. Anyway, the two had finally met in person about a month ago on a specially planned trip in Sri Lanka, and Enterprise had only recently returned back to England for a quick refit before being posted back to Force H in Gibraltar.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked.

"I... I, uh..." the light cruiser stammered, a luminescent blush painting her cheeks. "I need maternity leave!"

Admiral Cunningham froze, his mouth stuck in an open-mouthed smile. "What," he finally managed to croak out.

"W-Well, that first night in Colombo with Yahagi, we-"

"Stop," Cunningham ordered, slumping deep into his chair with his hand over his face. "What happened in Sri Lanka stays in Sri Lanka." His fingers parted, allowing one eye to stare at Enterprise. "Head over to Resource to confirm. I'll get the paperwork started."

Enterprise nodded, and left, leaving Cunningham to thump his head against the desk. "I really hope this is a prank..."

~o~

Enterprise poked her head into Resource's clinic, which for some odd reason was only half-lit. The repair ship herself was nowhere to be seen.

"Hello? Resource?" she called out. "I, uh... I need a pregnancy test of some kind?"

Suddenly the door slammed shut behind her, leaving the room even darker. Slowly, sweat dripping down her back, she turned around to see the looming face of Vanguard - just as she snapped a rubber glove on her hand.

 _"Bend over."_

~o~

"She's not pregnant, Admiral," Vanguard reported fifteen minutes later. "I can only imagine that she and Yahagi got a little... overexcited. Especially with the research I heard that Akashi's doing."

Admiral Cunningham quirked an eyebrow at the battleship, then glanced down at a catatonic Enterprise curled up in a fetal position on the floor. "Will she be alright?"

"Yeah, don't worry, I slipped in a memory-blurring drug when I was doing the examination. She won't remember a thing."

"Alright..." Admiral Cunningham muttered. "And what are you even doing here in Portsmouth when you should be back in Scapa?"

"I heard that there was SCIENCE! afoot!" she declared.

Cunningham opened his mouth, possibly to ask for clarification, then seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth. "Right..."

At that moment, both of them heard a low groan. Enterprise sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and glanced at Vanguard and Cunningham. "Admiral, what...?"

"Sorry, Enterprise, I had to put you under for the test," Vanguard replied. "Oh, and you're not pregnant, just so you know."

Enterprise blinked, then frowned in adorable confusion. "I don't know how I feel about that..."


	316. Rule 1085

**Rule 1085. Shoving Hoppo in a crab pot to prank the Deadliest Catch crews is strictly forbidden.  
**  
"Get... in... there!" Iku growled as she attempted to shove Hoppo-chan into a crab trap sitting on the bottom of the Alaskan coast.

[No!] Hoppo replied, stubbornly holding onto the sides of the trap. [I'm gonna get out of this, and then Mama Nagato is gonna make you _so sorry!_ ]

"Damn it, Hoppo, get in the fucking crab trap!" Iku roared.

As it turned out, what gave first was the metal of the trap, which bent under Hoppo-chan's grip and allowed Iku to get her into the trap. Of course, being an Installation-type Abyssal, that wouldn't have stopped Hoppo, were it not for the laminated voucher attached to the bottom of the trap.

[This is...] Hoppo muttered, her eyes widening as she read the words. [ALL YOU CAN EAT ICE CREAM?!]

"Yup. Gonna be murder on my wallet, but I figured I should pay you _something_ for going through all this," Iku said. "Now, are you gonna cooperate, or...?"

For a long moment, Hoppo was silent, before she flashed Iku a thumbs up. [I'll do it!]

"Atta girl," Iku said, grinning, before turning around and swimming off. "See you on the surface, I've got my own preparations to do."

~o~

"Admiral?"

Admiral Goto looked up from where he was streaming _Deadliest Catch_ on his computer to a rather worried-looking Mutsu.

"Have you seen Hoppo-chan anywhere?" the battleship asked. "Nagato and I haven't been able to find her, and she's practically beside herself with worry."

"Hmm," Admiral Goto hummed. "I haven't, actually. I'll detail a search party to help. Do you have any idea where she could have gone?"

"Well-" Mutsu began, only to blink as Admiral Goto did a _magnificent_ double-take. "What is it?"

"Never mind, I know where she is," Goto croaked out.

Mutsu, confused, walked around and leaned over Goto's shoulder to look at the screen. On screen were several crab fishermen, standing well away from a crab trap they'd clearly just hauled up - a crab trap that contained _Hoppo_ instead of any crabs.

"What in the world...?" she breathed.

Finally, one brave fisherman walked forward, cut the rope, and pitched the trap over the side. That broke the spell, and the fishermen began scrambling to pull up another trap.

"Mou, that wasn't very nice," Mutsu pouted. "Someone's in for a scolding when they get back."

"Yes..." Goto said slowly. "This isn't like Hoppo. I think someone put her up to-"

Another crab trap came up, and once again there was no crab. Instead, in the trap was Iku, dressed up in a mermaid tail and a pair of strategically-placed clamshells and making bedroom eyes at the sailors. Sailors who were hundreds of miles and days of sailing away from female companionship.

"Oh my..." Mutsu said, fanning herself.

"Iku and I are going to have _words_ when she gets back," Goto growled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I'll need to call Richardson to retrieve her." A grin spread across his face. "Hmm, maybe he can detail Maryland to do so."

"Now _that's_ mean, Admiral," Mutsu giggled. "Anyway, I'll go tell Nagato we found Hoppo-chan before she goes full Nagamon and causes more damage. Ta-ta!"


	317. Rule 1091

**Rule 1091. Yes, we've seen several non-combat ships return as shipgirls. The next person to make fun of them will be handed over to them for punishment.  
**  
Shimakaze basked in the chatter of her three new sisters, named Kiyokaze, Soyokaze, and Ōkaze for the original names of several old Kamikaze-class destroyers. They were also dressed somewhat differently, with their sailor tops covering their stomachs (though still sleeveless) and their skirts actually long enough to cover. The main clothing differences were down to their socks and whether or not they wore the arm-length gloves Shimakaze did. They were also all blonde, each destroyer styling their hair somewhat differently. And each had a different personality. Kiyokaze was the most childish of the trio, enjoying childlike things and being adorably confused at... well, a lot of things the more mature shipgirls said and did. She got along great with Desdiv 6 in particular. Soyokaze, on the other hand, was excitable and had the attention span of a hummingbird on crack. The wild tangents and conversational turns she went on were hilarious to listen to. And Ōkaze was a night battle enthusiast on par with Sendai. Yes, the combat kind of night battle, you perverts.

Shimakaze was brought out of her musings by a comment from Ōkaze that she really hoped she'd misheard. "Sorry, I was lost in thought," she said. "What were you saying?"

"Ōkaze was just saying that Akashi should really be in the kitchen if she wants to help!" Kiyokaze answered.

"Yup!" Ōkaze stated, not noticing a look of horror flash across Shimakaze's face, nor that Soyokaze had gone utterly and unnaturally still. "That's all non-combat ships like her are good for, anyway!" Only then did she notice the looks her other two sister ships were giving her. "She's standing right behind me, right?"

"Oh, no," Akashi said, a smile on her face and a vein pulsing on her cheek. "Please, continue."

Ōkaze grinned, and Shimakaze's eyes widened. "Ah, sis, don't-!"

"Your pigtails look like dust brushes," Ōkaze said, heedless of Shimakaze's warning. "Your armor plates look like they were thrown on with spit and prayers. Oh wait! They probably were. That headband looks stupid, not badass, no matter what your chuuni brain thinks. And don't even get me started on-"

Ōkaze's rant was cut off by one of Akashi's cranes grabbing her by the back of her collar and slamming her into the ground, cracking the concrete and giving the destroyer the mother of all concussions.

"Shimakaze," the repair ship said, her smile still in place. "Would you mind if I borrowed your sister for a moment?"

"... Sure," Shimakaze said after only a moment's hesitation.

"Perfect!" Akashi chirped, before leaving with her prize in tow.

"Ōkaze, you idiot," Soyokaze sighed. "Even I know you don't mess with repair ships. They can take you apart as easily as they can put you back together. Or put you back together in weird and wonderful ways. Like Zubian! I wonder if the Royal Navy's summoned her yet, or maybe they can make a new Zubian with the current Zulu and Nubian. Or with an actual Zulu and Nubian!"

Shimakaze let herself get lost in Soyokaze's chatter as she tried very hard not to think about what Akashi would do to her sister, no matter how much she had it coming.

~o~

"Ngh..."

"Oh, good, you're awake."

Ōkaze opened her eyes to find Akashi staring at her. That, and her fairies screaming at her that something was wrong. She tried to crane her neck, but found herself unable to move her head, and- was that her leg sitting on a workbench?!

"What the fuck did you do to me?!" she snapped.

"Where does the ship end and the girl begin?" Akashi mused rather than answer the question. "It's a problem that's gripped everyone who's tried to study shipgirls. And it's not one that's easy to answer. Still, I think we've made progress towards the 'more ship' hypothesis." She smirked, cruel and cold. "After all, a human wouldn't be able to survive - let alone speak - as just a head."

Ōkaze paled dramatically at that proclamation. "What."

Reaching out, Akashi plucked Ōkaze off the shelf she was on and carried her out, allowing her to see her headless, limbless torso sitting on a table.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Akashi assured her. "Shipgirl redundancies and all that. Also, you'll be pleased to know that you are Shimakaze's sister in all the ways that matter."

Ōkaze let out a low whimper. "Can you put me back together, please," she whined. "I think I'm feeling an existential crisis coming on."

"Sure, sure," Akashi said. "Just need to put you under again..."

Everything faded to black.


	318. Rule 1093

**Rule 1093. Valiant last stands are forbidden. We're very lucky that it didn't end with these stubborn girls annihilated.  
**  
"Ack!" Akebono yelped as a landing 6" shell sprayed her with water. "Stupid Abyssals! Why'd they have to emulate the damn _Brooklyn sisters_ for their light cruisers?"

"I hear ya," Sazanami said through gritted teeth. "If this keeps up, we're all gonna die, and I'd really rather avoid that. Either of you got any ideas?"

Akebono shook her head, but Ushio nodded. "W-Well, when I get into situations like this, I always ask myself: 'What would Taffy 3 do?'"

Sazanami and Akebono glanced at each other, and then all three grinned in a very shark-like manner, clacking their hand-held gun turrets together.

"Together?" Ushio asked.

"Together," Sazanami and Akebono said.

With that, the destroyers turned around, let their turbines hum to their maximum, and then charged at flank speed right at the Abyssal cruisers.

"BANZAIIIIIII!"

~o~

"They're fighting _what?!"_ Tenryuu demanded. She and Kiso were leading the 11th, 12th, and 16th Desdivs in addition to the 6th, escorting a scratch force of heavy cruisers consisting of Furutaka, Kako, Ashigara, Maya, Kumano, and Atago, as well as Akashi.

"What seems like every Abyssal light cruiser west of the Marianas," a grumpy Fubuki answered.

Both eyepatched light cruisers gaped at the destroyer. "Wait, why the hell haven't they retreated?!" Kiso demanded. "And for that matter, why did it take a passing _civilian airliner_ spotting them for us to know that this was even going on?"

"If there's anything left of them when we get there, you can ask," Ashigara said grimly.

Then she tripped over something.

The entire task force ground to a halt as Ashigara picked herself up off of the water. "Ah, dammit, what was..." She trailed off, reaching down and pulling up the object she'd tripped over. As it turned out, it was an unconscious Ushio, her clothes and rigging practically gone and more machinery than skin visible.

"Akashi!" the heavy cruiser immediately yelled out.

As the repair steamed over and began running diagnostics, the battle moved close enough that they could see it: Akebono and Sazanami, both heavily damaged, darting in and out between the Abyssals, taunting as hard as they could.

"- and then you had to work at a McDonald's and do a split shift at Wendy's because your hometown was poor as shit and everyone could only afford fast food 'cause healthy food is expensive, and that's before the your piece of shit comrades fucked up the global economy, so now it's even worse and you have to make drugs to stay alive, if you can call being addicted to your own shit meth being alive-"

"What in the world...?" Kumano wondered.

"That is some impressive taunting material, for being almost certainly thought up on the spot," Kako mused.

"Less talking, more shooting!" Ashigara and Fubuki barked in unison.

Distracted as they were by the two destroyers weaving in and out, the Abyssal cruisers were unprepared for the sudden hail of gunfire and torpedoes that eviscerated them in about five minutes. Akebono and Sazanami immediately steamed up to their saviors-

*CLONK!*

*CLONK!*

Only for Ashigara and Fubuki to both clock them upside the head.

"You idiots!" the latter barked. "What were you thinking?"

"W-We, uh..." Akebono stammered.

"When you get in a situation like this, you run and call for help!" Ashigara continued. "Not... whatever it was you were doing!"

"Now..." Fubuki finished. "What. Were. You. Thinking?"

"W-What would Taffy Three do?" Sazanami hesitantly answered.

Fubuki and Ashigara both slapped there hands to their foreheads. "That explains _everything_..." the latter groaned.


	319. Rule 1099

**Rule 1099. Shipgirl fleet training days are mandatory.  
**  
Yorktown II glanced around at the still, empty waters off of the California coast.

"Where is everyone?!" she yelped, clutching at her head.

"Well, between the fucking nerds headed off to Comic-Con, the fucking hippies headed off to Burning Man, New Jersey off leading her fucking Musashi and the rest of her goddamn ducklings on a tour of Los Angeles' best fucking burger joints, and a whole host of other shit..." Iowa shrugged helplessly. "Well, turns out a lot us shipbitches had better things to do than stand out here on the water being gay."

Yorktown sent a confused glance Iowa's way. "So, what are _you_ doing here, then?"

"I'm here to shoot shit," the battleship stated. "I mean, fuck, we gotta still have some targets left, right? Even if everyone else's gone."

"That's... not the problem," Yorktown muttered.

Iowa raised one eyebrow. "Well, what the fuck _would_ be the fucking problem, then?"

"It's the English-born returnee, Kongo, desu!"

"Oh Jesus no," Iowa immedately intoned at the sight of the Japanese battleship leading a sizable force of kanmusu.

"Vanguard, reporting for duty! Wow, this is a lot nicer than the North Atlantic."

Iowa, her jaw hanging open, whirled on Yorktown, her eyes blazing. "What the _fuck_ are the Japs and the Lobsters doing here?!"

"This was supposed to be a joint training session for future international operations!" Yorktown shot back. "We sent out emails and everything! That's why everyone needed to be fucking _here_ instead of gallivanting off on their own to _who knows where!"  
_  
Iowa stared as Yorktown, panting heavily, finished her rant. "Not bad, a 7/10. Make it longer and salt some more profanity in there, and-"

*WHAM!*

"Why in the hell are you _critiquing_ my angry rant?!" Yorktown demanded as she lowered her flight deck from smashing it into Iowa's skull.

"Huh, so the Americans _are_ as crazy as the rest of us," Kongo mused as she munched on a bucket of popcorn she'd procured from... somewhere. "I'd been wondering about that, desu. The last task force they sent was rather level-headed."

"Yeah, I figured most of their quirks were destroyer escorts being destroyer escorts," Vanguard added. "Nope! They're just as nuts as us." She paused, tapping her chin. "Though, now what? We've come all this way, and I'd really rather not go home empty-handed."

"Well, considering Operation Mayflower, I think we could all use some practice with ganging up on one target," Kongo said.

Yorktown and Iowa froze at that, and slowly turned around to see Vanguard, Kongo, and their respective fleets looming over them. "Go ahead," the two said in eerie unison. _"Run."_


	320. Rule 1101

**Rule 1101: The contest that the mechanics are having to see who can upgrade the oldest built ship to the most modern and combat effective ship is to stop now. We have other Shipgirls who also need those upgrades.  
**  
"We've got a leaker!" Brooklyn barked as an Abyssal Ne-class heavy cruiser bolted for shore. "It's heading for Wilmington!"

 _"I got this!"_ came a familiar and unexpected voice over the radio.

Brooklyn blinked. "Monitor? Is that you?"

 _"In the iron-plated flesh, dear,"_ the ironclad replied. _"I've gotten some... upgrades, and I'm quite eager to try them out."  
_  
"But-!" Brooklyn started to protest, for the old ironclad was outclassed even by torpedo boats.

 _"Buts are for ashtrays, dear,"_ Monitor admonished. _"Don't you worry about old me, these aren't the basic upgrades you girls get."  
_  
Chastened, Brooklyn fell back, though privately she'd hesitate to call upgrades such as Midway's SCB-110A 'basic'. "Alright. It's all yours."

 _"Thank you. Oh, and do keep an eye out for stray shots. Wouldn't want to hit any of you."  
_  
"That was Monitor, right?" Savannah asked, getting a nod in return. "When did she get a radio?"

"I don't know," Brooklyn admitted. "She also mentioned to watch out for falling shells, but her guns can't aim that far."

Almost immediately after she said that, they heard the whistling of incoming shells, and looked up just in time to see a round smack into the ocean a few hundred yards distant at velocities conventional rifled cannon couldn't hope to match.

"Monitor," Brooklyn shakily asked. "What were you upgraded with?"

 _"Radar, two of those Italian Super-Rapids, a new-fangled rail-gun, and enough engine to power them all. Oh, and I'm wearing these things called reactive armor tiles."_ There was an exasperated huff over the line. _"They're the one thing I don't like. I look like a chocolate bar wearing them!"  
_  
"R-Right," Brooklyn said shakily. "C-Carry on."

"A _railgun?!"_ Savannah demanded as Brooklyn cut the connection. "How the hell does that work?!"

"I'm just gonna chalk it up to Magical Sparkly Shipgirl Bullshit and move on."

~o~

"Ah-ha!"

Indefatigable turned around to see Droits de l'Homme behind her, aiming - oh my, that did appear to be a very large laser mount. And Exocet box launchers on the sides.

"I've finally found you!" the ship of the line crowed. "And now, perfidious Albion, you shall pay for the many humiliations you have inflicted upon me!"

"Uh huh..." Indefatigable drawled, before summoning her own rigging. And more importantly, the 155mm cannon and box-launched Naval Strike Missiles to either side. To her intense satisfaction, Droits immediately paled in terror.

"Well, it looks like we're at an impasse," the razee stated. "The only question is... who blinks first?"

From the sweat on the French shipgirl's brow, Indefatigable had a pretty good idea of who'd blink first.


	321. Rule 1103

**Rule 1103: Warspite, Scharnhorst, stop trying to kidnap Yamato so you can get your Best Battleship Marksman rematch.  
**  
"What are you doing here?" Warspite snarled.

"Me?" Scharnhorst indignantly retorted. "What are _you_ doing here? You're supposed to be in Alexandria!"

"Rodney's covering for me while I go get a refit," Warspite stated, an angry scowl on her face. "And on the that note, you're quite far from your own stomping grounds, aren't you, you overgrown cruiser?"

"At least I'm _fast_ , unlike you, you crippled old granny."

Warspite twitched, her glare intensifying. "The only reason you even have a claim is because intelligence and that stupid captain basically handed you Glorious on a silver platter."

Scharnhorst flinched, but fired back a blistering salvo of her own. "You were fighting the _Italians_ , your claim is even more tenuous."

"I'm right here, you know," Duca Degli Abbruzzi muttered.

"Look, just admit it, _I_ am the one with longest hit in history," Warspite sniffed, looking so far down her nose at Scharnhorst that she was actually looking up.

"Yeah, well, klabba rabbu ding dong!" Scharnhorst retorted.

"Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty," Renown cut in as Warspite stared in confusion at Scharnhorst. "Now knock it off. You're scaring my destroyers."

Both battleships flushed and turned back to their drinks, the rest of the patrons of the Gibraltar cafe they were in either sighing and returning to their own orders, or huddling behind Renown's legs.

"Well, at least we can take comfort that the bloody colonials or the sushis or, god forbid, those stupid frogs don't have the title," Warspite stated.

"There is that, yes," Scharnhorst agreed.

Silence fell as Renown turned back to her book. This lasted for a few minutes before Renown made a surprised grunt.

"Well, that's another reason for you guys to drop this," Renown said. "Yamato took that crown when you weren't looking."

"PFFFFT!"

Both battleships promptly spat their drinks in each other's faces.

"That fat whale of a battleship?!"/"That shitpile of shittastic Japanese steel?!"

"Yeah, that one," Renown said, holding up a copy of _The World Wonder'd_. "I didn't believe it myself at first, but Robert Lundgren makes a convincing case. Oh, and brace yourselves."

Warspite and Scharnhorst blinked in confusion, then turned around to see Yahagi somehow looming over them, cracking her knuckles. Behind her was HMS Enterprise, looking apologetic but also holding up her camera phone.

"Fat whale? Shitpile of steel?" the light cruiser said around a bloodthirsty grin. "Time for punishment, I think."

The two battleships gulped, and much violence ensued.

~o~

"Ugh, how the hell does a light cruiser the approximate firepower of a bloody _Arethusa_ hit so hard?" Warspite groaned as she held a raw steak to her blackened eye.

"The same way that crazy exploding destroyer of yours works: through _fucking_ magic, as is right and proper," Scharnhorst groaned from where she was soaking in a hot tub. "Anyway, we need to do something about that longest shot crown of ours."

"Don't worry," Warspite said. "I already sent out a challenge." As if on cue, the mail clattered in through the slot. "Oh, there it is!"

"Snail mail, really?" Scharnhorst scoffed as Warspite got up to grab the letter.

"What? These things need to be traditional," the battleship said as she picked out the right envelope and opened it.

"HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!"

To her surprise, an American aviator fairy hopped out, leaving behind a Corsair loaded up with 8 500lb bombs.

"What the-" Warspite began before the bombs exploded.

The room was promptly wrecked and the two battleships knocked around like ball bearings in a piston engine. And then, to add insult to injury, the room, weakened by the explosion and two 32,000 ton shipgirls smashing into its walls, collapsed on their heads.

~o~

Warspite put down her binoculars, wincing as the action pulled at the bandages covering her arms and chest. "Okay. Yamato's asleep, Yahagi's on sortie, and Enterprise is in San Diego. If we're going to do this, it has to be now." She glanced at Scharnhorst. "I really hope that device you nicked from Gneisenau works."

"I hope so, too!" Scharnhorst, as mummified as Warspite, chirped. The device in question was like a mechanical squid: ten strong, flexible arms intended to contain whatever it grabbed. Of course, the "I've seen enough hentai to know where _this_ is going!" jokes had killed the project, but it worked on Bismarck, so hopefully it'd be similarly effective against Yamato.

"Alright, then, let's go," Warspite said.

"Go where, desu?"

Both battleships immediately froze. "I'm not going to even look behind me," Scharnhorst groaned, hanging her head. "Warspite? Is that Kongo behind us?"

"Yup," the British battleship said, her voice wobbling.

"Any chance she'll go away if we just ignore her?"

"Nope!" Kongo cheerfully stated. "I can't let you interfere with Enterpise and Yamato's BURNING LOVE!"

"Right.." the German battlecruiser muttered before whirling around and throwing a fist in Kongo's direction - and nearly lost bowel control as it slammed into the nutty battleship's forehead and did _absolutely nothing_.

"Warspite..." Scharnhorst whimpered. "I think we done fucked up."

"Yesssss..." Kongo hissed as her head lolled on a boneless neck, her pupils black pinpricks and her smile far too wide to fit in a human mouth. "Yes you did."

Much violence ensued.


	322. Rule 1105

**Rule 1105. HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen is to stop using her camouflage around base, we can understand doing so while in enemy territory, but doing it to get into the cookie jar and to better tease the minelayers is getting ridiculous!  
**  
HMS Abdiel, one of the Royal Navy's fast minelayers, carefully negotiated her way through the minefield she and her sisters had left around the Portsmouth cookie jar, ignoring the large decorative plant someone had thoughtfully left in the kitchen. She soon made her way over to the jar, reached in, and took out a cookie; chocolate chocolate chip today, yummy! She quickly adjusted the sign saying "Take a cookie, leave a mine", dropped a mine on one of the last scraps of bare floor, and left, her cookie safely ensconced in a napkin.

When she came back three hours later, the minefield hadn't changed. Nodding, she picked her way through, and rummaged in the cookie jar, noting that it seemed more empty than when she had left it. Probably her imagination. Taking a cookie, she dropped a mine, and left again.

The next morning, when Abdiel arrived in the kitchen, something was clearly wrong. The minefield seemed thinner, the plant was closer to the jar, and the lid of the jar itself was slightly ajar. Minor things, and yet she couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness. Picking her way through the minefield again, she opened up the jar and peered inside, finding only crumbs. Her eyes narrowed, she tapped her chin and slowly turned around to stare at the decorative plant in its rock-bed pot. Now that she looked more closely, she could see the telltale muzzle of a 3" gun poking out of the fronds.

"Abraham Crijnssen, I know you're in that plant, I can see your 3" gun," Abdiel stated. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Abdiel, why are you talking to a plant?"

The minelayer whirled around to see the Dutch minesweeper staring quizzically at her, a half-eaten chocolate chocolate chip cookie held in one hand.

"Ah ha!" Abdiel crowed, jabbing an accusatory finger. "It was you! I knew it!"

"What, this?" Abraham said, holding up the cookie. "I got it from Shannon. She had, like, a dozen of the things."

At that news, Abdiel groaned. Shannon was a Robert H. Smith-class destroyer minelayer, and being a variant of the Allen M. Sumner class, outgunned her quite handily.

"Dammit," she muttered, before giving the plant a hearty kick. "Here's a spare 3" gun, by the way. Just in case you need one."

Abdiel then shuffled out the door, Abraham watching her go. And only a few minutes after she was out of sight did she reach down and retrieve her 3" gun - and the remaining cookies she'd stashed there.

"Heh, sucker," the minesweeper chuckled.

~o~

"What's happening to our mines?!" Shannon wailed, clutching at her hair.

She and the rest of the Robert H. Smith class were undergoing a training exercise in minelaying. For all that they had been designed as minelayers, they had spent more of their war careers doing minesweeping and radar picket duty due to the B-29 taking over offensive minelaying and no need for defensive minelaying. As such, as shipgirls they needed to learn how to do minelaying. Unfortunately, the mines they laid kept disappearing somehow.

"I think I have a pretty good idea..." Adventure muttered, glancing to a small, fern-dotted coastal island. She slowly steamed up to it and came to a stop, crossing her arms. "Abraham Crijnssen, I know you're in there, I can see your 3" gun. What do you have to say for yourself?"

For a moment, there was silence, and then a soft voice rang out. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the band."

"Yeah, I don't buy it," Adventure retorted, reaching into the mass of ferns and plucking something out. "Now, you're going to get out of that ridiculous getup and-"

The minelayer blinked as she looked upon a rather surprised fairy clutching a violin. Adventure had no time to react before Abraham popped her head out of the fronds and grabbed the fairy back.

"C'mon, we need him back if we're going to finish this song," the minelayer stated, before ducking back down.

"Wha-" Aaron Ward began, before Adventure cut her off.

"Don't question it," the British minelayer sighed. "That's just what she does."

~o~

New Orleans and Abaraham Crijnssen stared at each other from under their covering of palm fronds. Each looked for all the world like a small island.

"Sister!" the two cried out, jumping into each others' arms.


	323. Rule 1109

**1109\. Who ever gave the destroyers the idea to kidnap and use Iowa as a virgin sacrifice to turn themselves into battleships is in very big trouble.  
**  
"Yes!" Kiyoshimo crowed, holding up an old, leather-bound book. "This ritual will make me a battleship! All I need is an appropriate sacrifice!"

Opening up the book, she scanned over the sacrifices table.

"Alright..." she muttered. "Stone slab... thaumically-charged land... ah! 'Sacrifice must have qualities of transformation target, and must be virgin.' So, that means I need to sacrifice a battleship. Though which one? A Yamato?"

The battered forms of Warspite and Scharnhorst came to mind.

"Never mind," she muttered, moving a notch down her list. "A Nagato? Wait, Mutsu can't possibly be a virgin, and Nagato..."

A certain Installation-type Abyssal sprang up in her mind's eye.

"Okay, definitely not," she said, shuddering. "A Fuso? Nah, they'd defend each other in a heartbeat. And definitely not one of the Kongos."

Kiyoshimo sighed. "Well, looks like I'm getting a foreign battleship," she decided. "Now, let's see... virgin, battleship, someone _nobody_ likes..." Her eyes lit up. "Iowa!"

~o~

Laffey senior sighed as she walked down the beach. Admiral Holloway had denied her her battleship upgrade - again. It would work! She'd even worked out the blueprints and everything! But no, those ivory-tower stuffed shirts South Dakota and Phoenix kept insisting that it was impossible. Bah! She'd show them.

Her train of thought was promptly derailed when she tripped over something and faceplanted into the sand.

"Owwww..." she groaned, rubbing her nose. "What the hell was that?"

Turning around, she caught a very curious sight: a Japanese destroyer face-down and half-buried in the sand.

"Huh," Laffey grunted, grabbing the shipgirl by one of her pigtails and holding her head up. "I think I recognize her. She's... Fubuki, I think?"

The shipgirl in question suddenly groaned, and slowly cracked open her eyes. "Who...?" she groaned.

"USS Laffey, DD-459!" Laffey proudly announced. "And you're Fubuki, right?"

The Japanese destroyer stared at her as if she'd just grown a second head. "I'm Kiyoshimo," she finally managed after a few minutes.

"Right, Kiyoshimo, that was my second guess," Laffey lied. "Anyway, what're you doing here, Kiyoshimo?"

"I was... I..." The destroyer suddenly perked up, and her hands shot up as a fist met a palm. "Oh, right, I was trying to sacrifice Iowa to some dark gods to become a battleship!"

For a moment, the only sound on the beach was that of the crashing waves and the occasional seagull. Then Laffey grinned and grasped Kiyoshimo's hand, her eyes sparkling.

"Can I join in?!"

~o~

Iowa's return to wakefulness was, as usual, slow and painful. As such, she quickly ran her mental catalogue. Pain? Confined to her head, wrists, and ankles. Mobility? A tug on her limbs confirmed that she was bound. Location? Lying on something as hard as pavement, but much smoother.

 _'I swear to God, if Maryland's kidnapped me for her kinky experiments...'_ the battleship groused as she slowly opened her eyes. She was promptly treated to the sight of a manically grinning Benson class destroyer.

"Hey, Iowa!" Laffey chirped.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, you little shitstain," Iowa groaned. "Are you _still_ trying to become a battleship? Get it through that thick fucking skull of yours, it's not going to work!"

"Yeah, well, I have help this time!" Laffey stated, stepping back to let Kiyoshimo enter Iowa's view, her book in hand.

"Shall we begin?" the Japanese destroyer asked.

"Begin what?" Iowa said, dread creeping into her voice.

"Why, the ritual, of course!" Kiyoshimo said cheerfully. With that, she opened up the book and began reading off of it in a voice that cracked trees, killed granite, and sent kittens fleeing in terror.

Almost immediately, a black miasma sprang up above Iowa, growing as Kiyoshimo continued chanting. It wasn't long before the miasma coalesced into a recognizable form, a vaguely humanoid figure with two blazing red eyes. It didn't resolve much further than that - or perhaps that was just Iowa's mind protecting her from the gibbering horror that came from comprehending the thing's true form.

Iowa whimpered fearfully as the demon reached out one clawed finger, it sinking into her belly - and then it froze. Kiyoshimo froze, Laffey froze, and had Iowa not been immobilized, she would have frozen, too. Then the demon stepped back, its red eyes closed, and then it spoke.

 **"Oh, for Ba'al's sake... you had one job to do!"** the demon raged in a British accent. **"One job!"  
**  
"W-What?" Kiyoshimo stammered. "W-We got everything right! It should've-!"

 **"Do they not teach you this in your schools anymore?"** the demon said, jabbing a finger at Iowa. **"I don't know this woman, but I do know she is** ** _not_** **a virgin."** He frowned slightly. **"In fact, I'm not sure she's** ** _ever_** **been, and that's quite the feat."  
**  
"Yeah, well, that's what fucking happens when you spend most of your life stuffed full of seamen," Iowa cheekily replied.

The demon chuckled. **"I think I like you,"** he said, before turning to the two petrified destroyers. **"Now, normally, I'd punish the both of you quite harshly for wasting my time like this. I could always use more help cleaning up after my dragon. But honestly, I think I'll pass."  
**  
Both destroyers gulped as the chains holding down Iowa snapped, letting the battleship stand up and crack her knuckles.

 **"Quite frankly, Iowa here seems to have things well in hand."  
**  
And with that, he vanished.

"Alright, you fucking rugrats," Iowa purred. "Time for _punishment."_


	324. Rule 1118

**Rule 1118. The 4th of July is not an excuse to raid the ammo store of star shells then proceeding to have gunnery duels with them in the name of 'celebration' anyone caught doing so will be punished.  
**  
"Hey," Atlanta said, a shit-eating grin on her face. "You know what day it is?"

"I dunno, Atlanta," Yorktown Junior said back, a similar grin on her face. "Why don't you tell me what day it is?"

"I'm pretty sure it's Fourth of July," Atlanta replied, throwing in a "'Murica!" afterward. "And you know what that means!"

Carrier and cruiser locked their guns on each other.

"Star shell duel!" they both shouted in unison, followed by a salvo of star shells in each others' faces. The slow-moving burning phosphorus was easily dodged, and the two shipgirls moved on, each trying to tag each other - and each leaving chaos in their wake.

~o~

"Franklin! Bunker Hill!" Randolph shouted as she tried to shake her two insensate sisters awake. "You're not on fire! You're fine!"

The two carriers didn't respond, preferring to stare at the sight of Hancock running around screaming, her hair on fire, even as Boston and Wichita tried to corral her with fire extinguishers.

"All of this has happened before..." Franklin intoned.

"And all of it will happen again..." Bunker Hill finished.

"Shit, maybe Enterprise will know what to do," Randolph muttered.

And all the while, Yorktown and Atlanta continued their duel unheeded.

~o~

"Jesus," Tone muttered as she watched Yorktown and Atlanta merrily skip past a burning building, several shipgirls desperately trying to put it out. "What are those idiots doing?" She chuckled ruefully. "Star shell duels. Well, at least that's one thing we haven't done. Right, Chikuma?" There was no response, and Tone glanced behind her. "Chikuma?"

To her surprise, her sister was huddled behind an air conditioning unit, quivering fearfully.

"S-Sorry," she stammered. "I-I have a bit of a fear of star shells." She shuddered. "Phosphorus... not even once."

Tone's face turned stony and hard as she looked back out onto the carnage below. "Atlanta... Yorktown... I'm going to make you both _pay."_

~o~

Admiral Holloway stood outside of the machine shops, tapping his foot. He wondered what Midway would be like after her upgrade; shipgirls adjusting in personality after major rebuilds was a well-documented phenomenon.

Finally, the door opened, and Midway stepped out. Only it wasn't the usual shy, meek Midway. This girl had a confident smirk on her face, and her flight deck showed the modifications of Coral Sea's own SCB-110A modernization. The parked Phantom jets were a giveaway, too.

"USS Midway, CV-41, reporting for duty, Admiral!" the carrier said, snapping into a salute.

"Welcome back, Midway. How do you feel?" Admiral Holloway asked.

"Like a million bucks, Admiral!" Midway replied. "But, uh, can we not do the SCB 101.66? I like my all-weather launching capability, thank you very much."

"Don't worry, the 110A is overkill as it is," Holloway stated. "In the meantime, we have a mission for you."

"Whatever it is, Admiral, I accept!"

As if on cue, a blob of burning phosphorus crashed through the window and began eating into the floor. Midway gingerly picked her way around the fire and stared out the window, where Atlanta and Yorktown were still dueling under a pall of smoke lit by floating star shells.

"Hmm, yes, that is a problem," she mused. "But I think Los Angeles has it covered."

"Los Angeles?" Admiral Holloway said, frowning. "What's she-"

The roar of jet engines filled the air, and both man and shipgirl were treated to the sight of a Regulus missile streaking in and detonating between Yorktown and Atlanta. The resulting explosion knocked the cruiser out outright, and left the carrier staggering drunkenly.

"Like I said, she's got this," Midway said, smirking.


	325. Rule 1119

**Rule 1119. No one is allowed to mention Honda Point to any of the American destroyers.  
**  
"And right now we're just coming up on Santa Barbara," Los Angeles said.

"Pretty..." Yamato breathed.

"I know, right?" Enterprise replied. "And the central coast is even prettier."

"Now, we just need to round Honda Point, and-"

Los Angeles was cut off by all of their escorting destroyers suddenly screaming and doing a 180 as fast as their turbines could carry them.

"Alright, that happened..." Yamato said as the destroyers sped away. "Do they usually do that?"

"No, they don't," Los Angeles answered in bewildered confusion. "I don't... I can't even..."

Enterprise hummed and tapped her lip. "Maybe one of the old four-pipers will know..."

~o~

"Honda Point?!" Pope yelped. "Don't talk to me about Honda Point! Honda Point? Jesus!"

~o~

"No, shut up!" Paul Jones demanded, planting her hand over Los Angeles' mouth. "You say its name three times, and it comes and swallows you up!"

~o~

"There are three things I hate in this world," Stewart said, a distant look in her eyes. "Submarines, Abyssals, and Honda Point."

~o~

"This is ridiculous!" Enterprise grumbled. "Not a single one of them was willing to say anything!"

"Worse, we don't have any destroyers older than them," Los Angeles added. "Which is bad, because this seems to come from their era, or even predate them."

The two Americans lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, only for Yamato break it.

"Well, what about Allen? Has she been summoned?"

Carrier and cruiser blinked, then sent the battleship identical confused looks. "Literally who?" Los Angeles asked.

"USS Allen?" Yamato repeated. "DD-66? Sampson class? Oldest American destroyer in WWII?"

"Not ringing any bells..." Enterprise said slowly.

"Really." The look Yamato sent the two American shipgirls was drier than Owens Lake. "How is it that _I_ know your shipgirls better than you two?"

Los Angeles and Enterprise had no answer to that, as evidenced by the embarrassed foot scuffing and side glances.

"Let's just go find this girl," Yamato sighed, rolling her eyes.

~o~

Wherever they had expected to find Allen, a suburban house outside of San Diego was not it. The property showed clear signs of being well cared for, particularly the pristine rock garden she had studded with water-resistant plants. And a bunch of garden gnomes that were honestly very out of place. Slowly, Los Angeles reached her foot out to nudge one of them.

"Please don't touch one of the wee men," Allen said, not even looking up from the weed she was digging out of the ground.

"R-Right," Los Angeles stammered, withdrawing her foot.

"So," Allen said, putting down her trowel and standing up. "What does the pride of the Japanese Navy, the Grey Ghost, and a random heavy cruiser want with me?"

"Hey!"

"We'd like to know about Honda Point, Allen," Yamato answered, ignoring Los Angeles' indignant sputters.

"Honda Point, huh," Allen mused, before shaking her head and chuckling. "Those younger destroyers probably still get worked up when you so much as mention that name. Not that I can really blame 'em, though. Six destroyers lost in peacetime is pretty bad. All ran aground on the rocks there."

"Wow," Yamato breathed, before turning a glare on the other two shipgirls. "And you don't know this _how?!"  
_  
Once again, Enterprise and Los Angeles had no answer.


	326. Rule 1123

**Rule 1123. Okay whoever convinced Isokaze that she was the reincarnation of a genderbent King Arthur on one hand her fighting prowess has increased significantly...but so has the bases food budget! I mean she just ate more than even Akagi!?  
**  
"Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

"There, there," Ashigara said soothingly as she massaged her boyfriend's scalp. "What is it this time?"

"Our food stores are just... gone," Captain Yonehara groaned. "A week early! It's like we suddenly got another fleet carrier with Akagi's appetite!"

"Oh. That is bad," Ashigara grimaced. "What can we do?"

"I'm going to have to dip in the Yukikaze slush fund," Yonehara sighed. "And the paperwork for that is just..." He shuddered.

"There, there," Ashigara said again as her hands moved down to his shoulders. "You need to loosen up a bit, and I know just the thing! Wanna guess what Isokaze did today?"

Yonehara groaned as his girlfriend's strong hands steadily worked out the knots in his muscles. "Mm, I have no idea," he muttered.

"She showed up dressed in this suit of armor like some European knight, complete with a sword and some sort of crown!" Ashigara said. "And then, when one of the servers asked what she wanted, she called herself 'King Arthur'!"

"Heh, that is funny," Yonehara said before frowning as a thought came to him. "Wait, what did the armor look like?"

"Armored gauntlets, breastplate, armored greaves, all over a long dress with a bit of transparency in front to show off the legs," Ashigara listed off. "Dress was blue. Oh, and the crown! I almost forgot! Little jeweled circlet over a rounded helm."

Feeling better, Yonehara sighed and sunk back into his chair. "Okay, then she's not imitating Saber. Probably."

~o~

Tenryuu and Kiso glared daggers at the back of Isokaze. How dare this girl muscle in on _their_ territory! _They_ were the badass swordswomen in Yokosuka, and it was bad enough that they _still_ hadn't been able to determine which of them was superior. Adding a third girl into the mix was just intolerable!

Finally, the destroyer stood up, deposited her tray with the dishwashers, and left, prompting the two light cruisers to pack up themselves and follow in a manner they thought was stealthy. Sadly, this was proven wrong as, as soon as they left the populated areas of the base, Isokaze turned around, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"I know you're there, you knaves!" the destroyer announced. "Show yourselves, if you be men!"

Tenryuu and Kiso needed no encouragement, stepping out from their hiding spots with their hands on the hilts of their own swords.

"Ah, the Dragon and the Pirate," Isokaze stated. "What be your business with the King of the Britons?"

"Jesus Christ she's even more chuuni than me," Kiso muttered, before speaking up. "I challenge you, King of the Britons, to a contest of arms!" She drew her sword, the cutlass making that nice "schink!" sound as it came out of its sheath.

"A duel, eh?" Isokaze replied, drawing her sword, a fairly standard longsword with a richly decorated crossguard. "I accept! Have at thee!"

Kiso immediately dashed forward, sword held low for an upward swing. To an outside observer, she might as well have been a blur, and the swing even less visible. The swing was blocked, of course, but to Kiso's shock it was only by a bare inch drawn from the scabbard. Before she could react, Isokaze drew the sword fully, knocking the light cruiser back and throwing her sword out to the side.

"Uh oh..." Kiso whimpered.

*SCHLURK!*

Tenryuu raised an eyebrow as Kiso slumped to the ground, occupied with keeping her intestines from spilling out of her guts.

"Alright, now that you've wiped your feet on the doormat-"

"Fuck you!"

"My turn." Grinning shark-like, Tenryuu drew her own sword, but she didn't charge in. Instead, she waited, sword at ready, and this time it was Isokaze who attacked.

In contrast to the more measured moves used against Kiso, this time the destroyer went with simple blunt strength, battering down Tenryuu's defenses with repeated overhead swings. The light cruiser found herself rapidly backpedalling, and on the fourth swing, the unthinkable happened: her sword shattered.

"Oh shi-!" was all she got out before Isokaze's sword smashed upwards into her torso, opening up a gaping wound and sending her flying into the air.

"Tsk. Disappointing," Isokaze muttered as she sheathed her sword. Her stomach promptly grumbled, prompting her to sigh and head back to the cafeteria. "Are you never going to be satisfied, you ravenous beast?"

~o~

"Shall we get started on your back, darling?" Ashigara purred.

"Yes, please," Yonehara groaned.

Ashigara reached down to start taking off his uniform jacket-

*CRASH!*

When Tenryuu suddenly came smashing through the ceiling, sending blood everywhere and shattering Yonehara's desk.

"Oh, hey guys," she groaned, laying unmoving. "Can someone call Akashi, please? That's a lot of blood..."


	327. Rule 1126

**Rule 1126. While we understand the importance of supply ships there is such a thing as overprotection.  
**  
It was just another Atlantic convoy. A pair of escort carrier groups, one British and one American, were sweeping the distant seas for submarines and aircraft. Battleships Nelson and Rodney, accompanied by Glory and the usual screen of cruisers and destroyers, were providing distant cover in case any Abyssal surface ships came knocking. And, in the inner circle, several Royal Navy V and W-class destroyers modified as long-range ASW ships helping out some Canadian frigates in close screening.

All of this and more, the Ma-class Abyssal submarine took in. Her 12" gun was on standby; for now, torpedoes were the order of the day, and she quickly lined up a shot with a large grain carrier. One salvo of torpedoes later, and she was diving, tensed for the retaliatory fire.

Even as the submarine made a clean getaway, one of the British destroyers, HMS Vancouver - who was not, despite claims to the contrary, actually Canadian, and refused to go back to the name Vimy - spotted the torpedoes. A quick calculation told her that only one torpedo would hit, but on these cheap-ass Korean pieces of shit one torpedo was usually enough.

"Not the supplies!" she cried out, before diving on the torpedo. It duly exploded, showering the area with water and scraps of skin and metal.

"Vancouver!" her sisters Valentine and Vanity cried out as they sped over to the stricken destroyer. To their horror, as the spray cleared it revealed Vancouver lying face-down in the water, a gaping hole torn in her side and her arm hanging by a few tendons.

"You idiot! Why did you do that?!" Vanity demanded, cradling Vancouver as Valentine sped off to get help.

"Had to... protect... the supply ship..." Vancouver whispered.

"You fool!" Vanity wailed as her sister passed out.

~o~

"Ugh... stupid Isokaze," Kiso muttered as she stomped down the waterfront, absently rubbing her gut every so often. "When I find who turned her into a King Arthur wannabe, they're gonna wish I'd killed them."

Grumbling incoherently under breath, Kiso didn't notice at first what was going on at the docks. When she did, though, all she could do was stare. There, swarming over a recently-arrived cargo vessel with bubble wrap, were Teruzuki and Akizuki.

"What in the world?" she muttered. "Where'd they even get bubble wrap in that kind of bulk?"

By now, the Akizuki sisters' badly skewed ideas of what constituted proper eating were well known throughout the base. And considering the ship in question was a refrigerated ship, the conclusion was obvious.

"Jesus, maybe I should call up New Jersey again, have her send another care package," the light cruiser muttered.

~o~

Goto was having a nice day in the office when his phone rang.

"Hello?" he asked as he picked it up.

 _"You wouldn't happen to know where a dozen of my Liberty ships went, would you?"_ Admiral Holloway asked.

The Japanese Admiral frowned. How would he know? "Well-"

Suddenly, the door to his office swung open, admitting a worried-looking Mutsu and a rather peeved Hoppo-chan.

"Hold that thought," he said, before putting down the receiver. "What is it, girls?"

Worldlessly, Hoppo held up her phone and played a video, featuring Nagato cuddling a dozen perturbed-looking Liberty ships.

 _"C-Can we go now?"_ he heard one of the cargo shipgirls whine.

 _"No!"_ Nagato barked with surprising heat. _"You're staying with me where it's safe!"_

"Never mind," Goto said into the phone. "I know where they are. You'll have them back within a few days."


	328. Rule 1129

**Rule 1129. Torpedoes make bad shields. Fletcher can tell you all about that once she comes out of the repair dock again.  
**  
Another day, another round of getting shot at by Abyssal ships. Fletcher gritted her teeth as she weaved in and out of the shell splashes. On the plus side, it wasn't every day they had all ten of the Pacific Fleet's Standards blasting every Abyssal in range, but there was still a lot of incoming metal her 3/8" steel skin was absolutely terrible at resisting.

In fact, there was one such round, a shell her fairies helpfully informed her was an 8" AP. Unfortunately, it was also joined by several of its brethren, bracketing her so that there was nowhere to go. Forward, get shot. Slow down, get shot. Swerve left, get shot. Swerve right, run into one of her fellow shipmates. On reflex, she made an instinctive and very human move: she raised her arm to shield herself. Her arm that _also_ held a quintuple torpedo mount.

 _'I immediately regret this decision!'_ Fletcher moaned in her head. The shell hit her torpedo mount, the sturdy torpedoes setting off the shell's fuze. The explosion, naturally, set off her torpedoes, engulfing her in fire and smoke.

The battle continued on unabated as the smoke cleared. Then, Fletcher shot out of the cloud at flank speed, her left arm gone and the rest of her body that side scorched and blackened.

"I'm alive!" she called out through teeth gritted in pain. "Fletcher, falling back for medical help!"

The quartet of Japanese destroyers on loan watched as Fletcher exited the battlefield, then glanced at their own torpedo mounts, loaded up with volatile oxygen torpedoes. Memories of Chokai and a surprisingly scrappy escort carrier flashed through their minds.

"Okay, that's something to practice away when we get back," Shiratsuyu managed to get out, Shigure, Yugure, and Ariake nodding in numb agreement.

~o~

"Hmm..."

Phoenix tensed. In their months of working together, she and South Dakota had become adept at reading each other's thoughtful hums. This one spelled trouble, as it indicated an idea that was out there but based on just enough actual scientific principles to seem plausible, and thus something to try.

"Dare I ask what you're thinking this time?" the light cruiser asked.

"Oh, I was just looking over Vestal's report on Fletcher's recent battle damage," South Dakota answered. "And I noticed that the 8" shell itself barely did any damage. An armored shipgirl probably would've shrugged off that explosion, and we've got a bunch of old Mark 10 torpedoes in storage, so-"

"No," Phoenix immediately cut in. "We are _not_ using torpedoes as Explosive Reactive Armor. I'm the explosives expert here, so trust me when I say that it won't work. APC is not HEAT or APFSDS."

"Aww..."


	329. Rule 1130

**Rule 1130. Enterprise and Yamato are no longer allowed to take walks late at night without permission.  
**  
"Good morning, Wright," Admiral Holloway said as he walked into his office. "What've you got for me today?"

"Well..." the light carrier hedged, before handing over a stapled report. "Best to look it over yourself."

Holloway frowned, but took the report and sat down at his desk. Most of the report was a description of a pile of fifty-three dead Abyssals, including a Battleship Princess that had been shot sixty-three times with 5" and 40mm guns. The rest exhibited all the signs of being shot to death by gunfire, though they mixed in 18" and 6.1" among the wounds. And considering that only two battleships in the world carried 18" guns, and Musashi was still in Japan, he already knew who the culprits were when he reached the conclusion naming Enterprise and Yamato as the likely cause.

By then, only one page was left: Enterprise's report. It was a concise summary of the events outlined in the official report, just from her perspective. In fact, it was perhaps a little overly concise. Sighing, Holloway quickly dialed a number on his cell phone.

 _"Hello?"  
_  
"Enterprise, it's Admiral Holloway," the Admiral stated. "I need to talk to you about-" He paused, frowning even harder as he heard muffled panting in the background. "What in the world are you two doing?"

 _"Something I really want to get back to, so make it quick, Admiral,"_ the carrier groused.

"Okay, so, the incident from last night," Holloway sighed. "It says here you went on an evening beachside walk with Yamato up at Point Mugu State Park."

 _"Yup."  
_  
"At which point you were jumped by a fleet of 53 Abyssals that had somehow slipped through our detection net."

 _"I'm assuming, yeah."  
_  
"You then killed all of them without using any of your aircraft and without reporting them to either the local authorities or fleet command."

 _"Didn't see the point, on either count."  
_  
"And in the process, you - not Yamato - shot the Battleship Princess leading the force..." He flipped back to the earlier report. "Sixty-three times. Most of that 5", but with some 40mm mixed in."

 _"Was it that much? I lost track."  
_  
"You then proceeded to make out with each other on top of the corpses-"

 _"Yes, it's not like I explained all this in writing or something. Is that all?"  
_  
Holloway scanned over the report again. "I don't think so..."

 _"Good. Because I've got shit to get back to."  
_  
Once again, muffled panting made itself audible in the background, accompanied by a low groan.

"Right..." Holloway said. "And all this because you took a walk."

 _"It was a very enthusiastic walk. Now, it was nice talking to you, Admiral, but I really need to get back to this."  
_  
And with that, the carrier hung up on him.

Holloway stared at the phone in front of him for a second before sighing and picking it up to put it away, only for it to ring again.

"Hello?"

 _"Ah, Admiral, I forgot to mention something,"_ the carrier stated. _"I'm taking a week's leave so Yamato and I can enjoy Bermuda."  
_  
The Admiral blinked in confusion. "Wait, didn't the Abyssals take over that island?"

 _"Not anymore."_

"You just went for a walk! How did you-?!"

 _"Like I said. It was a_ very _enthusiastic walk."_


	330. Rule 1133

**Rule 1133: Call Nelson and Rodney either** ** _Rodnol_** **or** ** _Nelsol_** **at you own risk. As in don't.  
**  
"Ugh!"

New York, Nevada, and Oklahoma glanced at their fourth member of the Atlantic Fleet's battleship division, Arkansas. The four were parked on one of the grassy hills near Scapa Flow, enjoying a nice picnic lunch and some shipwatching.

"What is it this time?" New York sighed as she put down the cupcake she'd been just about to bite into.

"Look at them!" Arkansas exclaimed, indicating the harbor. The other three battleships scanned over the harbor before sending each other quizzical glances.

"And...?" Oklahoma prompted. "All I'm seeing is the Home Fleet in all its glory."

"Some glory," America's oldest battleship snorted. "Look at them! All legs and boobs and pretty faces!"

"Oh, here we go," New York groaned, running a hand down her face. "No one ask her to elaborate, please."

"What's wrong with those?" Nevada immediately asked.

A grin spread over Arkansas' face. "I'm glad you asked!" she announced as she pulled out her phone and queued up a song to-

"No," New York cut in, plucking the phone out of her hands. "Explain your 'hip-and-booty' fascination if you must, but I draw the line at Sir Mix-a-lot."

"Philistine!"

"Oh, I get it!" Nevada exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "It's all cruisers, destroyers, carriers, and super-slim fast battleships down there! They don't have the beam you like!"

"Yes!" Arkansas exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "Finally, someone gets it! Norfolk has all the escort carriers, Portsmouth has those delicious Rs and their bulges, but here, everyone's these little sticks! Like supermodels! My entire main battery for _one_ ship with a length-to-beam ratio below 7!"

Oklahoma glanced down the tall, big-breasted, very curvy form of Vanguard, and the somewhat squat, well-muscled, and equally big-breasted King George Vs. "I wouldn't exactly call _them_ supermodel-like..." Nobody heard her.

And then, as Arkansas looked out over the waters again, she saw it. Two visions of beauty steaming into the mouth of harbor ahead of a gaggle of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. One had dark hair reaching down to her shoulders, her features angular and severe. The other had blonde hair of the same length, her face softer, rounder, and overall cuter. And, more importantly, the wide hips Arkansas so desired.

"So beautiful..." she moaned, a spot of drool leaking from her mouth that she hastily wiped away. "Who are they?"

"That's Nelsol and Rodnol!"

"You mean Nelson and Rodney."

"Yeah, them!"

Arkansas looked over their forms again, picturing their ship selves in her head, and nodded. There was a similarity between them and oilers. Then she blinked, and they were gone.

"What the-"

She whirled around to see the two British battleships looming over Nevada, looking quite, ah, 'put out'. New York and Oklahoma were wisely vacating the area as fast as their engines would take them, and Arkansas quickly did the same, though not before getting a good, long look at the two battleships.

 _'I was right,'_ she thought as Nevada's screams echoed over the lagoon. _'They look even better up close.'_

~o~

 _"Hey, Nelsol!"_

 _"Nelsol, we've got incoming heavy cruisers!"_

 _"Uh, Nelsol, can I touch your guns?"_

 _"Nelsol, tell me how to grow up big and strong like you!"_

"I swear to God, when I find out who corrupted the frigates like that..." Nelson grumbled as she steamed in company with Belfast, Kenya, and Cumberland as convoy cover again. "I can't beat up frigates! They're too cute!"

"Well, Rodney tried the whole 'stern schoolteacher' schtick," the dark-skinned light cruiser stated.

"But then they all teared up, she hugged them sobbing about how she was sorry, and nothing changed," Cumberland added.

"I guess you're just going to have to live with it," Belfast finished, shrugging.


	331. Rule 1137

**Rule 1137: To whomever summoned the** ** _Titanic_** **... How and Why?!  
**  
"Hey, Titanic!"

The passenger liner looked up from where he had been texting back and forth with Langley, giving Jamaica an honest smile that had made many a shipgirl's heart flutter. "What's up, Jamaica?"

"I-I, uh," Jamaica stammered, blushing, before she managed to compose herself. "How did you and your siblings get summoned? I wasn't summoned yet when it happened, so..."

Titanic blinked, before putting his phone down and pulling out a chair from under the table he was sitting at. "Well, why don't you sit down and I'll tell you?" he said. "Go ahead and order some tea, too. They make excellent tea here."

Jamaica nodded stiffly, and sat down, waiting expectantly as Titanic took a sip of his tea.

"It was a little over a year after the start of the Abyssal War, and the Royal Navy was conducting another summoning. Apparently, they were trying to get Renown and Belfast..."

~o~

 _Admiral Collingwood, recently promoted, watched as the summoning circle glowed, the light reaching up to engulf the pile of steel, aluminum, and oil stacked high within it. Beside him, a Royal Marine band playing God Save the Queen was practically in a duel with an Irish folk band. Despite the fact that the Japanese had been using the ritual for literally months now, and neither they nor the Americans had encountered any problems, it still amazed and worried him that they were relying on_ fucking magic _to fight against the Abyssals._

 _"Oops."_

 _The British admiral whirled on the young lieutenant who'd uttered that dreaded word. "Oops?" he demanded. "What do you mean, 'oops'?"_

 _The young officer held out his cup, which was filled with ice cubes. "I like munching on ice cubes," he explained. "Don't worry, I just dropped one. I doubt it'll change anything."_

 _Admiral Collingwood sighed and nodded. Really, what could an ice cube do?_

 _None of them noticed said ice cube slide down into the summoning circle..._

~o~

"Really?" Jamaica drawled. "An ice cube? That's what got you summoned?"

"Well, it wasn't _just_ the ice cube..."

~o~

 _The Royal Marine band switched to Nearer My God to Thee as the glow from the summoning circle reached its peak. An odd choice, but considering the band had played anything from old sea shanties to Robbie Williams pop songs, this wasn't all that odd._

 _The glow turned to a flash, prompting everyone present to cover their eyes. Once they could see again, they took in the figures standing in the circle._

 _"HMS Renown, reporting for duty."_

 _"HMS Belfast. Good to be back, sir. When do we start killing Abyssals?"_

 _"I'm Lance!"_

 _"And I'm Lively!_

 _"And together, we're ready to kick ass!"_

 _"RMS Titanic. I, uh, I'm actually not sure what I'm doing here."_

 _Collingwood felt his jaw drop as he looked at what looked for all the world like young Leonardo DiCaprio in an old White Star Line uniform. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see similar reactions from the rest of the assembled personnel, and even the shipgirls in the circle were eyeing him oddly._

 _"Wait..." Renown said, frowning. "Then that means you're Olympic's..."_

 _"Yes!" Titanic said, snapping his fingers before frowning and glancing down at himself. "Though I'm fairly certain I'm supposed to be her_ sister _, not her brother."_

~o~

Jamaica's eyes widened. "Wait, you're supposed to be _female?!_ "

"Well, yes," Titanic answered, taking another sip of his tea. "As it turns out, given how the ritual is optimized for warships, trying to summon civilian warships through it does... odd things, when it works. Most of the time it just fizzles." He shrugged. "I don't mind, honestly, and neither does Olympic. I am glad they got the adjustments right for Britannic, though. I suspect she wouldn't have taken it nearly as well as we did, coming out male."

"Th-Then..." Jamaica stammered, her face white. "The ritual only summons _female_ liners?!"

Titanic frowned. "Er, yes. I mean, look at all the Liberty ships the Americans have been summoning." His eyes turned soft and worried, and the light cruiser nearly confessed then and there. "Why? Is something wrong? You're looking rather frightened."

Jamaica didn't answer, instead standing up and stammering out a denial. "N-No, it's nothing. I, uh, I just need to go talk to somebody. Itwasnicetalkingotyoubye!"  
And with that, she bolted out of the tea shop.

Titanic blinked at the sight before sighing. "Oh dear. What kind of shenanigans is the Royal Navy getting up to now?"


	332. Rule 1142

**Rule 1142. Ship girls may not claim titles they have not earned.  
**  
Admiral Goto flipped through the reports Desdiv 6 had turned in. It always brightened his day to read them. Akatsuki's were detailed and thoroughly professional - if you ignored the fact that they were written entirely in crayon. Hibiki's were a little wobbly, probably from the vodka she consumed, but they were just as professional and detailed. Ikazuchi's were embellished to hell and back, but now that he'd gotten used to reading between the lines, the Admiral could admit that she was a master story-teller. And finally, Inazuma, who was hilarious in her brevity, made up for by Akatsuki's and Hibiki's reports.

Then Tenryuu's report came up.

Admiral Goto sighed. Her reports weren't _bad_ , per se, but there was always at least one problem serious with them. Whether it was obscuring bloodstains, a body that was basically "I came, I saw, I killed", or, in one memorable instance, the whole thing being drawn entirely in comic book form, nine times out of ten he had to toss it out. He looked over the front page, not seeing anything obvious, and settled in to read the whole thing.

He didn't make it past the first line. After all, the title "Demon Queen Tenryuu" where her name should've been was kind of a red flag.

Sighing, he quickly typed out a text message, sent it, and then went back to reading. The rest of the report was refreshingly normal, and he had just finished it when Tenryuu stepped in.

"You wanted to see me, Admiral?"

"Yes, I-"

Goto froze as he took in the sight of Tenryuu. Her eyepatch and radar, not to mention her hairstyle, were still the same. That was about it. Her visible eye was now golden and slitted, much like a cat's. Pointed incisors poked out from under her upper lip. A black cloak lined at the top with fur held together with gold chain hung off her shoulders, exposing a black corset baring the upper half of her breasts and her bare midriff and a pair of black shorts so brief they almost couldn't be called shorts. And finally, thigh length high-heeled boots and a pair of long gloves with clawed fingertips.

"What the actual fuck, Tenryuu," Goto finally got out.

"Silence!" the light cruiser barked, sweeping her arm out across her body, which did... interesting things to her breasts. "I am the Demon Queen Tenryuu! And I demand the respect afforded my-!"

The door swung open, admitting a fuming Tatsuta, who immediately marched up to her sister and grabbed her ear.

"Ow, hey, what the-!"

"I'm terribly sorry about this, Admiral," the other light cruiser said apologetically. "I'll handle things from here." And with that, she turned a heated glare on Tenryuu that caused the more-chuuni-than-usual shipgirl to wilt. "What do you think you're doing?! You look like an American comic book character! And 'Demon Queen'? At least take something dragon-related!"

Goto chuckled and shook his head as Tatsuta dragged her sister out of his office. Just another day in Yokosuka.

~o~

Lamotte-Picquet and Duguay-Trouin groaned in unison as they met in the compartment of the bullet train they were riding from Toulon to Brest.

"Nothing?" Duguay-Trouin asked.

"Nothing," Lamotte-Picquet lamented. "There's only one place she could have gone."

Both light cruisers glanced upwards at a hatch leading up to the roof, and Lamotte-Picquet leaned down to let Duguay-Trouin climb onto her shoulders. With the extra height, the eldest sister was easily able to open up the hatch and allow both of them to haul themselves up onto the roof.

They were immediately assaulted by the slipstream of the train, their heads blasted back by the wind. And yet, standing there on the roof with not a care in the world was their missing sister, Primaguet.

"Gah, I can't do anything in this wind!" Lamotte-Picquet yelped. "How's she just standing there?!"

"That's because I am the number one train fighter in the world!" Primaguet announced.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever!" Duguay-Trouin called out as she drew herself to her feet, hunched over in the wind, Lamotte-Picquet doing the same next to her. "Just get back in the train before-"

Primaguet vanished, a split second before the train entered a tunnel.

"ACK!"

Being shipgirls, the two light cruisers were significantly stronger than the concrete of the tunnel. Still, at that speed, they were quickly forced down, their heads grinding against the top of the tunnel, leaving behind a channel carved into the stone.

Mercifully, the tunnel was short, and they soon popped out - right into a forest area. Branches assaulted them from every angle, and the squirrels seemed to have taken personal offense to Duguay-Trouin's existence, as they kept pelting her with nuts. Finally, the train cleared, and the two light cruiser slumped to the roof, Primaguet back in her standing position, thoroughly unscathed.

"How... How did you..."

"Number. One. Train. Fighter."

~o~

"Uh, Hornet?" Hancock asked her roommate. "What is that?"

"Oh, this?" the carrier said, tapping the framed, hand-drawn certificate on the wall. "That's the 'Best Carrier' certificate! The holder of which is certified as the best carrier in the world!"

"And... it's yours."

"Yup!"

Hancock considered that. Hornet did have a good claim, between the Apollo retrieval and her World War II record, and had Enterprise not existed she might have even held sole possession. But, well, Enterprise did exist. And... oh dear, where did she come from?

"Best carrier, huh?" Enterprise said, smiling beatifically in contrast to the throbbing vein on her cheek.

"Yup!" Hornet chirped, before processing who she was talking to. "Oh, shit!"

"Are you ready?" Enterprise growled, cracking her knuckles.

"You'll never take me alive!" Hornet declared before diving through the wall. As in, she slipped through it like it was air.

"Tch!" Enterprise promptly dashed out the door after her, leaving an utterly befuddled Hancock behind.


	333. Rule 1148

**Rule 1148. Please do not attempt to set Tenryuu up on another blind date. We'd rather not see what she will do this time if the guy turns out to be an asshole.  
**  
Akatsuki practically vibrated in her seat as she waited for Tenryuu to get back. Part of that was nervous anticipation; mostly, it was the coffee she'd consumed to stay up _way_ past her bedtime. She'd wanted to have some more of that Black Blood of the Earth stuff, but all of her sisters, even Ikazuchi, had blocked that idea. The destroyer let a pout spread across her face; the only time she could be an elegant lady, gone! Well, at least, she thought she was an elegant lady when she drank that. Her memories tended to blur when she drank the stuff.

Finally, though, the door creaked open, admitting Tenryuu, and Akatsuki's face fell as she took in the sight of her momboat. The light cruiser's outfit - tight jeans and an equally tight sweater under a light coat, with her radar left home - was disheveled, her hair similarly so, and she had an expression of absolute murder on her face. Still, the destroyer put on her best happy face and bolted for the door.

"Tenryuu!" she cried out before wrapping up the light cruiser's legs in a hug. "How was your date?"

Tenryuu chuckled mirthlessly and reached down to fluff her charge's hair. "I know you girls mean well, but no more blind dates, okay?" she said, before grimacing. "They say third time's the charm, but clearly whoever said that never had to deal with these chucklefucks."

The purple-haired destroyer sighed. The first blind date they had set up for Tenryuu had proven to be a sleazy pick-up artist - and not even a good one! The second had turned out to have lied on his dating profile, and proved to be a hundred pounds heavier, two inches shorter, and a great deal less suave than he'd depicted himself as. And in between was what was supposed to be a one-night fling with a handsome guy at a club that had turned out to be some sort of tentacle monster out to eat her and wear her skin.

That poor tentacle monster.

"What did this one do?" Akatsuki sighed.

In lieu of a verbal answer, Tenryuu reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills that she pressed into Akatsuki's hands. The destroyer read over the label, her brows scrunching together in confusion.

"What's... flunitrazepam?" she asked.

"It makes you sleepy," Tenryuu said, taking back the bottle. "This jackass slipped it in my drink with the intention of doing... unspeakable things to me."

"Oh..." Akatsuki drew out. "You mean like [REDACTED]?"

Palm met face as Tenryuu let out a long groan. "I have got to talk to those Canadian destroyers about using Iku as a live target for ASW practice..." she muttered, before straightening up. "Exactly. When you grow up, you see a pill drop in your drink, or you suddenly feel sleepy for no reason, you go for the nads and call the police, okay?"

"Okay!" Akatsuki chirped. "But, uh, what happened to you?"

To the destroyer's surprise, Tenryuu blushed at that. "I, uh, didn't notice until I'd drunk the whole glass - and a few more besides. As it turns out, those sorts of drugs don't last long against shipgirls, and there was a dumpster handy, and, well..."

~o~

Detective Yokomizu of the Tokyo police walked up to the taped off area, officers nodding in greeting, mentally noticing the presence of a fire truck parked nearby for some reason. Ducking under the tape, he walked up to the sergeant on the scene.

"What have we got?" he asked.

"Well... see for yourself, sir," the officer replied.

The detective looked where the sergeant was indicating, and blinked at the sight of a dumpster reduced to the approximate size and shape of a 1000-lb rubber band ball, a pair of legs clad in what had been an expensive pair of pants and shoes stuck out of one end. Several firefighters were attempting to pry open the misshapen lump of metal with the Jaws of Life, and making little progress.

Detective Yokomizu sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Shipgirl?"

"That's our theory."

~o~

"You'll find out when Admiral Goto gets a call from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police," she eventually said. "Now c'mon, kiddo, it's time for bed for both of us."

Akatsuki nodded and allowed herself to be picked up and carried to bed. Mama was safe. That was all that mattered. The destroyer made a mental note to tell her sisters to drop all the blind dates, though. They didn't seem to be working.


	334. Rule 1149

**Rule 1149. Yes, RMS Titanic did come back as a shipboy. This doesn't mean you girls should swarm him with proposals.  
**  
"So, dear sister," Kirishima said, adjusting her glasses. "Why are we out on the pier at this ungodly hour?"

Indeed, the four Kongo sisters were standing on one of the piers of Yokosuka, looking out on a bright red sunrise off to the east. "Because we have an Englishwoman coming today!" Kongo announced. "And as the ENGLISH-BORN RETURNEE, I must be there to greet her! And what better way to introduce Japan than my own sisters?"

"W-Well, be that as it may," Kirishima stammered, blushing. "You might want to do something about Hiei and Haruna."

Kongo blinked, and turned around to see her other two sisters slumped on the ground, leaning up against each other and periodically nodding off.

"Hieeeeeee..."

"Haruna is sleepy..."

"Mmph, you might have a point, Kirishima-chan," the battleship admitted, glancing back out over the water. "Oh, there she is! Hi, Titanic!"

The glasses-clad battleship sent a pointed look Kongo's way, before turning back her gaze out onto the water as the ocean liner approached. As the coal smoke cleared, and the shipgirl approached, though, several incongruities made themselves known.

"Kongo..." Kirishima muttered. "That is not a girl's face. Or chest. Or anything, really."

"I... That's odd..." Kongo muttered.

Both battleships activated their optics - and immediately staggered back, an action that finally jolted their sisters out of their early-morning stupors.

"Kongo-onee-sama! Kirishima!" Haruna and Hiei cried out in unison.

"M-Must stay strong..." Kongo muttered to herself, though she didn't take her eyes off the incoming ship _boy_. "Must stay strong for the Admiral..."

"Not bi, not bit, not bi..." Kirishima repeated over and over, though she also didn't take her eyes off the horizon.

Curious, Haruna and Hiei trained their own optics on the horizon. What they saw was... well, it was indescribable. There, on the water was the most _scrumptious_ man they'd ever seen. Looking like a young Leonardo DiCaprio, he wore a classic White Star Line uniform, underneath which could be discerned wide shoulders, long legs, and a nice, solid chest. And he was coming straight towards them with a sunny smile on his face.

"W-Who is that?" Hiei asked, wiping some drool from her cheek.

"Haruna _like_..." the third of the Kongo class purred.

"That is RMS Titanic," Kirishima informed them. "And I have no idea why he's male, but, well..."

"Ten desses out of ten," Kongo cut in.

"Yes, that."

~o~

Tenryuu sighed as she and her kindergarten- er, destroyer division steamed back into Yokosuka. It had been a hard expedition, in large part due to the PT imps that seemed to have infested the old route. She made a mental note to ask for a couple of the Mogami sisters to take some destroyers and clear things out again before the next expedition.

A smell wafted over the wind, and almost immediately she perked up. There were some excellent cooks in Yokosuka, most notably Hosho, but she'd never smelled anything like this.

She turned her optics on the shore and detected a long table stacked high with what looked like a five-star full-course meal, Titanic standing over it in his shirtsleeves wiping his brow. And oh my, he had some quite delectable muscles in his forearms.

"T-Tenryuu..." Ikazuchi whined. "I-Is that ours?"

On the shore, Titanic perked up and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Feel free to dig in!"

The destroyers all whooped, even Hibiki, and then sprinted at flank to the table, scrambling up to the meal. Ikazuchi and Akatsuki immediately threw themselves in their chairs and reached for the food, only for a wooden serving spoon to smack their hands.

"There will be manners at the table," Titanic declared. "And bad girls don't get dessert."

Ikazuchi and Akatsuki glanced to the left end of the table and nearly broke it with their jaws at the sight of the multiple American-style sweet pies arrayed at that end.

"I have cherry, blueberry, apple, and pecan," Titanic explained.

"We'll be good," Akatsuki and Ikazuchi immediately chorused, Inazuma and Hibiki alread sitting demurely at the table, Tenryuu just sitting down. The ocean liner smiled - which was like seeing the sun all on its own - and began doling out the food. Slowly, Tenryuu reached with her fork, almost afraid to sully the food with the utensil. Still, she speared the food, a piece of roast beef, and put it in her mouth.

The pierside at Yokosuka was swept away, leaving Tenryuu sitting in a lavish dining room, the meal arrayed in front of her and Titanic standing over as a waiter. A glance down revealed an elaborate Edwardian gown instead of her usual combat outfit, and the fork was silver instead of well-polished stainless steel.

Then the whole vision vanished, and Tenryuu idly noted that her destroyers all had the same blissed-out expressions on their faces.

 _'Handsome as hell, cooks better than Hosho,_ and _can handle kids?'_ Tenryuu thought as she dove back into the meal. _'Mine.'_

~o~

"Ah, Hosho!" Titanic said as the carrier's hand landed on the door to the cafeteria. "Let me get that for you, please."

~o~

"Handkerchief?" Titanic offered Zuikaku, who was leaning against the wall of the locker rooms, still sweaty.

"Thanks."

~o~

"Ah!" Mogami yelped as she once again tripped over her feet. She tensed, waiting for the sting of hitting the ground - and instead, felt strong hands grab her around the waist and shoulders.

"Ah, careful there, ma'am," Titanic said as he eased her back upright. "Are you alright?"

"Y-Yes!" the heavy cruiser yelped with a luminescent blush.

~o~

"Your Majesty," Titanic intoned as he bowed to a passing Isokaze.

~o~

Titanic sighed contentedly as he opened the door to his guest quarters, the latest stack of proposals in his hand. Katori, Kashima, Takao, Suzuya, Unryu, Yamato, Akatsuki again, and Sendai, today. He stepped in, shrugging off his jacket and carefully placing it and his hat up on the coatrack by the door, before sitting at his computer and booting up Skype. It didn't take long for the call to go through to San Diego, and a motherly blonde face appeared on his screen.

 _"Titanic!"_ Langley greeted, her smile quickly souring at the sight of the envelopes in his hand. _"More proposals?"  
_  
"Sadly, yes," the liner sighed. "I'm going to turn them all down, of course, but..."

 _"I know, I know,"_ Langley sighed. _"Still, this is getting out of hand. Is Langley going to have to cut a bitch?"  
_  
Titanic opened his mouth to respond, then frowned and walked up to his window. There, twenty-four seaplanes were, in an amazing feat of flying, circling just right to spell "Marry me!" in the air, with the seaplane tender Mizuho on the ground waving up to him.

Slowly, the ocean liner stepped back from the window and sat back in his chair. "It appears that Langley does indeed need to cut a bitch," he said dryly. "That is not a statement I was expecting to make today or ever, but your logic is irrefutable and I am not above admitting my own mistakes."

 _"I'll be there in a week. Hang tight until then, honey."_


	335. Rule 1150

**Rule 1150. No more attempts to summon Cruise Liners to act as your boyfriends.  
**  
"A-Are you sure this will work?" HMS Triad stammered to U-651.

"The formula is good, and U-20 knows what she's doing," the Type VIIC said confidently. The Type IIA in question nodded from where she was monitoring the summoning circle.

After a few minutes, the circle glowed with a bright light and consumed the resources stacked on the floor within. When the light cleared, though, instead of a scrumptious shipboy there stood a rather nervous shipgirl.

"You're... RMS Lusitania, right?" U-651 said.

"Y-Yes, I-" Any further response from the ocean liner was cut off as her eyes fell on U-20, her face paling. "N-No. Not you! Not you!" Taking a deep breath, the liner screamed with every bit of boiler capacity she had, before throwing herself as far away from the trio of submarines as she could. All three submarines present flinched and covered their ears, but it still left them partially deafened.

"Okay, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," U-651 muttered.

"Y'think?!" Triad snapped, before turning to Lusitania, who flinched and tried to burrow into the wall. "What are we going to do with her?! She's a noncombatant! Useless!"

"Not to mention what our superiors will do to us," U-20 pointed out.

The other two submarines paled to a shade similar to Lusitania's, who for her part had curled up in a ball, as they imagined what U-47 would do to them, let alone anyone else. Silently, U-651 hefted her 88mm gun. Triad vehemently shook her head at the idea, and U-651 was about to protest-

*CRUNCH!*

Only for a bronze axehead to break a hole in the door.

"Heeeeeere's Olympic!" the shipboy in question growled, his face set in a demented grin as it pressed in from the hole.

Triad and U-651 immediately shrieked and fired a pair of shells, one 4" and the other 88mm, at the door. The poor door was immediately reduced to a pile of splinters, but that didn't affect the ocean liner stepping over them, a gleaming bronze axe in the shape of a propeller blade in his hand and a demented grin still glued to his face. With no way to run, U-651 and Triad braced themselves.

Much violence ensued.

After about ten minutes, Olympic stepped back, wiped his brow, and surveyed the two battered submarines, before his hand snapped out and snagged U-20 by the back of her swimsuit.

"And where the hell do you think you're going, you little shitstain?" he growled.

U-20 gulped, and braced herself.

More violence ensued.

After a few minutes, Olympic removed U-20's head from the divot he'd smashed into the wall with it, and then tossed the diminutive submarine onto the pile with U-651 and Triad. Finally, he turned over to the last inhabitant of the room, and froze.

On one side, there was Olympic. Much like his younger brother, he had a strong resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio, but where Titanic was the actor in his twenties, fresh off a star-making role in _Titanic_ , Olympic was the man in his forties. His face was harder, lined, and adorned with a mustache and beard. The liner was also rather more muscled than his younger brother, and down to his shirtsleeves, White Star uniform nowhere in sight.

Lusitania, on the other hand, was resplendent in Edwardian dress and boots, her auburn hair done up in a neat bun. She was tall, and slim, the skirt of her dress unable to fully hide her long, muscled legs. Even with her face marred by tear streaks and her own fear, she was still exceptionally pretty.

Slowly, Olympic reached out his hand, which Lusitania gratefully, and perhaps a little desperately, accepted.

"Thank you, Olympic," Lusitania said.

"My pleasure, Lusitania," Olympic replied.

~o~

Down the street at a dockside coffee shop, Britannic smiled as her ears perked up.

"Well, it seems those submarines acted exactly as I thought they would," she mused. "And that's both of them. Now..."

She pulled out her phone, and looked at a picture of a distinguished-looking German naval officer.

"My turn."


	336. Rule 1155

**Rule 1155. No, there are no magic springs in China that will allow you to switch gender.  
**  
"Are we there yet?" Harder groaned as she crested another hill behind Ning Hai, one of the few Chinese shipgirls in existence. Her discomfort was only magnified by the fact that she was wearing a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and sturdy boots instead of her usual bikini.

"We'll get there when we get there!" the cruiser snapped. "Jesus, you Americans are so impatient. And why do we have to speak Japanese with each other?"

"Look, I'd love to speak anything else, too, but it's the only language we both know!" Harder shot back. "I can't speak Chinese, and your English makes you sound like the Incredible Hulk!"

Grumbling invectives in Mandarin, Ning Hai focused her attention back on the hike, wondering why she was even here in the first place.

About two weeks prior, Harder had shown up in Taipei with wild tales of magical springs that could transform whoever bathed in them into something else. The transformations ranged from the mundane, like a panda or octopus, to the fantastical, like an Asura or yeti. The submarine had promptly shanghaied her into being her interpreter/guide for the trip, and somehow in the whirlwind of preparation that followed Ning Hai had neglected to tell her captor that she didn't believe a word of that legend and that she was on her own if she wanted to go find it. That neglect had stretched over the short flight to Shanghai, the much longer train ride to Qinghai Province, and by the time they were hiking through the mountains she had too much invested to say anything.

However, when she crested the next hill, she allowed that maybe there was some truth to the legends. There, spread before her in a rather picturesque little mountain valley were pools as far as the eye could see, studded with bamboo poles at regular intervals.

"Well, what do you know," she muttered to herself.

"What did you say?" Harder groaned behind her.

"I said I think we're here!" Ning Hai called back.

Harder soon joined her at the summit, panting, sweating, and all-around miserable, though she perked up at the sight of the valley. "Well, hot damn, it does exist," she said.

"Don't get too excited. We still need to see if there's any magic in these springs," Ning Hai cautioned, before heading down the hill. "C'mon, you said there would be a guide. Just let me do the talking."

It didn't take them long to reach the valley floor, and it took even less time for a rotund man in a Mao-era PLA uniform to rush up to them.

"Ah, honored visitors!" he declared in Mandarin, bowing. "Welcome to the valley of Jusenkyo!" He flinched, giving them a nervous look. "May I ask what you're here for?"

"We heard tales of springs that could transform anyone who fell into them," Ning Hai answered, before sending a glance in Harder's direction. "I'm here to verify that. As for my companion, I have no idea."

"Yeah, fuck this," Harder cut in in English, prompting confused stares from Ning Hai and the guide. Stepping forward, she grabbed the Chinese light cruiser by the collar, lifted her up, and then before she could react, hurled her as far as she could.

"FUUUUUUUUCK YOOUUUUUU, HAAAAAAARDEEEEEEERRRRRR!" she screamed as she reached the top of her trajectory before coming down, the guide and Harder tracking her fall. She promptly hit one of the springs and fell in with a massive splash.

"Oh, honored visitor fall into Spring of Drowned Dragon," the guide said, switching to his broken Japanese. "Is very tragic tale of dragon who drown there 2300 year ago."

Harder promptly paled. "Wait, _dragon?!"  
_  
As if on cue, a blue-and-green scaled Eastern dragon soared out of the spring, roaring at the top of its lungs and spewing flame. Reaching a few hundred feet in the air, it leveled out and made a beeline straight for the two figures on the far end of the springs. Harder flinched, but didn't move. It was a fucking _dragon_ , after all. What the hell could she do against it? Coming in for a landing, a flash of light engulfed the dragon, which faded to reveal Ning Hai, back to her human form.

"Oh, yes, dragon do that, too," the guide noted.

"Congrats, Harder," Ning Hai said, grinning. "You get to avoid me finding out if you taste good with ketchup, because I can now become a fucking _dragon_ at will. This is officially the best day of my life."

Harder nodded dumbly, then glanced at the guide. "Hey, think you can ask him where the Spring of Drowned Man is?"

"I'm in a good mood, so sure," Ning Hai replied, turning to the guide herself. "So, which one is the Spring of Drowned Man?"

The guide nodded, clearly pleased at being able to speak Mandarin. "Follow me, honored visitors."

With that, they set off, carefully picking their way along the banks between the springs. Soon enough, they were at a specific pool, indistinguishable from the rest.

"The Spring of Drowned Man," the guide announced. "It is a-"

"A very tragic tale of a young man who drowned there centuries ago," Ning Hai interrupted.

The guide snorted. "No, it's a very stupid tale from less than a hundred years ago, involving alcohol, a dare, and a pretty girl."

The Chinese light cruiser nodded. "That actually makes more sense."

*SPLASH!*

Ning Hai sighed and slapped her forehead. "Of course..." she muttered.

Harder stepped out of the spring, now very visibly male. "Alright, mission accomplished!" he announced in Japanese.

"Dare I ask what the point of this was?"

"To better troll the Jap destroyers, of course!" Harder stated smugly.

"Of course..."


	337. Rule 1156

**Rule 1156. Do not threaten Abyssal ships by saying you know kung fu. They will be inclined to test you.  
**  
Miyuki gulped as she watched the Ri-class heavy cruiser following her slowly catch up. The rest of her task force was either limping away for home or already fighting an opponent. Luckily, so were the rest of the Abyssals, but that still left her facing an heavy cruiser about seven times her weight.

Thus, the Fubuki-class destroyer did the only thing she could: she bluffed like mad.

"Back off!" she shouted, turning around and waving her arms in a vaguely martial-artsy manner. "I know kung-fu, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

For a moment, the Abyssal just stood there, staring, and Miyuki dared hope that it had bought it. Then, a wide grin spread over its face, and it cast away its armaments with a careless shrug before falling into a textbook perfect kung-fu stance.

"Oh, fuck," the destroyer groaned. "That's so unfair..."

And then the Abyssal was on her. Miyuki, as a shipgirl, had been trained in basic hand-to-hand skills. When you have fifty thousand horsepower at your disposable, getting immobilized by a normal human is a damn good motivator to git gud. Of course, these basic hand-to-hand skills were just that: basic. The skills of her opponent, meanwhile, were anything but basic.

Blows slipped past her guard like it wasn't even there. Attempts to attack were brushed aside and followed by devastating counters. Her opponent even had time to throw in fancy flips and spins. The Ri-class cruiser was stronger, tougher, bigger, and just flat-out _better_ than her.

Finally, the Ri-class cruiser slammed a kick into a punch-drunk Miyuki's midsection, causing her to double over around the foot in her gut. As she slowly collapsed, the Abyssal grabbed her hair, a reattached gun platform aiming at her tenderized face. The gun fired, and the resulting explosion propelled Miyuki's limp body into the air, before she slammed into a small, rocky island upon landing, leaving her buried under a pile of shattered rock.

The Abyssal slowly steamed forward to confirm, but the sound of aircraft propellers prompted her to scowl and sink beneath the waves.

[Well, it seems you get to live a little longer,] the heavy cruiser taunted. [Enjoy it.]

~o~

Fubuki felt her desk creak under her fingers as she read the report on the most recent battle. It clinically laid out the injuries Miyuki had sustained, and it was clear that it was a minor miracle that she hadn't fallen apart before getting into the docks. Her torso was best described as "china shop post-bull", her face had detached from the rest of her skull, she had more jaw fragments than teeth, the mother of all concussions, and major burns all over her face. And the culprit had gotten away, too.

A knock sounded out at her door. "Come in," she growled. The door swung open, admitting Murakumo, Sazanami, and Inazuma, all with expressions best described as "thunderous".

"Fubuki," Murakumo announced. "We talked it over, and we're going to let Inazuma have first crack at this kung-fu bitch."

"I don't care what the official records say, Miyuki is my sister," Inazuma growled. "I don't like killing, but I think I can make an exception."

Fubuki nodded. Saved her the trouble of doing it herself. "Are you sure you can take it?" she asked. "It is a heavy cruiser, even without all the kung-fu bullshit."

"Trust me when I say that Plasma-chan won't have any trouble," Sazanami stated.

Fubuki nodded again. "Alright, authorized. As long as you've cleared it with Tenryuu-"

The sudden paling in the faces of all three destroyers prompted Fubuki to sigh and drop her head in her hands. "Clear it with Tenryuu, and _then_ it's authorized."

~o~

Inazuma glanced behind her. The convoy battle continued to thunder along, but she was far enough away now. Nodding, she cupped her hands, and called out.

 _"I know kung fu!"  
_  
Right on cue, a Ri-class heavy cruiser surfaced in front of her, weapons cold and in a kung-fu stance.

[Another destroyer?] it said, sounding disappointed. [Oh well. Hopefully you'll be more of a challenge than the last one.]

"My name is Inazuma," the destroyer announced, sliding into a karate stance. "You hurt big sis Miyuki." Lightning began to crackle around her, enveloping her in a cocoon of electricity. "For that, there is but one punishment: death."

The Abyssal blinked, and then grinned, showing off far too many teeth. [Bring it on, little destroyer.]

And with that, the two charged at each other.


	338. Rule 1162

**Rule 1162. Serving of poi is canceled during any international ship exchange with Yokosuka kanmusu.  
**  
"And this is the cafeteria," Winslow said as she led Desdiv 2 through San Diego Naval Base. "The cooks like to mix things up, so I'm not sure what they're serving today..."

"Oh, they're serving Hawaiian food today," Dewey said as she walked by, scooping some sort of viscous substance out of a bowl with a spoon. "We've got loco moco, plenty of roast pork and pineapple, poi-"

"P-Poi?!"

Dewey glanced at a panicked-looking Yuudachi, who was being guarded by a glaring Murasame and Harusame and supported by Samidare.

"Yes, poi..." Dewey said slowly, before holding out the bowl. "Want to try some?"

Yuudachi looked at the bowl, took a deep breath, and then _screamed_.

"IYAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Everyone staggered back, clutching their ears, as Yuudachi let out the loudest scream most of them had ever heard. By the time she fell to the ground in a dead faint, they'd gotten quite a bit of attention from the American shipgirls gathered in the cafeteria.

"... Was it something I said?" a dumbfounded Dewey muttered.

"You're not eating my sister!" Murasame declared, jabbing an accusatory finger at Dewey.

"Eat your- Oh, goddammit," Winslow groaned. "Guys, we're not going to eat Yuudachi. Poi is a Hawaiian dish made from taro."

"They've got sweet and sour poi if you want to try it," Dewey added as she took out a scoop and started chewing. "Oh, and they also have some Samoan poi for dessert."

Frowning, Harusame reached forward and poked Dewey's Hawaiian poi, getting a clump of it stuck to her finger in the process.

"Okay, I don't think this is made from Yuudachi," she declared. "But, uh, I think we're gonna get lunch offbase, if you don't mind."

"No problem," Winslow said. "I know a great taco truck downtown, they serve the _best_ fish tacos."

"DON'T EAT ME, POI!" Yuudachi suddenly shrieked as she shot up.

"Oh, now I get it!" Dewey exclaimed through a mouthful of poi. "She thought poi was her because she is poi, just a different poi!"

"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" came the dulcet tones of New Jersey from the mess hall. "ENOUGH WITH THE POI!"

"Time to go, I think," Murasame and Winslow hastily said before herding the other three members of Desdiv 2 away from the mess.


	339. Rule 1167

**Rule 1167. It's strictly forbidden to inform shipgirls about existence of roller skates.  
**  
Samuel B. Roberts stared at the items in the window of the downtown San Diego shop. The future truly was bright, if such wondrous instruments could exist!

"You like the roller skates, young lady?"

The destroyer escort looked up and nodded frantically at the elderly proprietor of the shop.

"You want to buy a pair?"

A wad of twenties flashed under the old man's nose, and he took them, smiling all the while.

"Come in, come in!" he said jovially, leading Sammy B. into the shop. "Let's get you fitted for a pair, shall we?"

~o~

Samuel B. Roberts skated along the sidewalks of the naval base, looking for a good target. And there, heading down some stairs, was Missouri, totally oblivious. Perfect! Pumping her legs, the destroyer escort accelerated before jumping off the top of the stairs and planting her feet on the back of the battleship's head before pushing off at even greater speeds.

"SAMUEL B. ROBERTS!" Missouri howled as she faceplanted to the ground.

Her only response was to pull down her eyelid and stick her tongue out before continuing on. She didn't get far, though, before a familiar figure swung in front of her and screeched to a halt.

"Turnabout is fair play, innit?" Wisconsin smirked, before pumping her roller blades and knocking Samuel B. Roberts to the ground as she passed. "You know where to find me!"

As the destroyer escort picked herself up off the ground, she made a silent vow: this meant war!

~o~

"So," Admiral Holloway said to Wright. "How goes the campaign against roller blades and skates?"

"Partially successful, sir," the light carrier reported. "The surface actions have halted, but that just means Wisconsin and Samuel B. Roberts have gone underground with a proper roller derby arena. Apparently, it's quite popular on Fridays."

"Good enough," Holloway decided. "As long as they're out of the public eye and paying for their own damage, I'll take it. Now, what's this I heard from Admiral Briggs about Constitution?"

"Apparently..." Wright said, flipping a few pages on her clipboard. "Constitution has discovered the joys of the Segway."

Holloway frowned. "That doesn't sound so bad."

"She raided the stock of ballistics dummies and then set them up as zombies for her to try and break through," Wright deadpanned.

The Admiral raised his finger, and then lowered it. "What."

"I was as befuddled as you, sir, but Briggs included video," the light carrier shrugged. "I think it's on Youtube now, by the by."

"That fucking website..." Holloway groaned. "Do the Royal Navy and Marine Nationale have this much trouble with their frigates?"

"I do believe theirs are worse, sir, if the stories I've heard about Indefatigable are true."

"Lovely. Ah well, at least it's Briggs' problem."


	340. Rule 1171

**Rule 1171. No. The Fuso sisters do not have secret siblings in Russia.  
**  
"Hey, Hibiki, I didn't know the Fuso sisters had siblings in Russia!"

Hibiki frowned in confusion at Ikazuchi. "Wait, what?"

In lieu of answering, the other destroyer pulled out a printed photo of Sevastopol and pressed it into Hibiki's hands. The sometime Soviet destroyer had to admit, there was a strong resemblance. The low turret farm, the casemated secondary guns, the slight clipper bow, and, of course, a creditable attempt at imitating a pagoda mast.

"Hn," the snow-haired destroyer grunted, handing back the photo. "You do know that the Gangut and Fuso classes are entirely different, right? The Ganguts have twelve 12" in four triple turrets to the Fusos 12 14" in six twins. And they have much thinner but more extensive armor than the Fusos. And that's not even getting into the fact that much of their similarities are due to mutual modernizations, modernizations that might have never happened had-"

Ikazuchi slowly edged away from Hibiki, who was rapidly descending into a full-blown rant. That was way more naval history and design than she wanted to know, thank you very much! When it came to history, Ikazuchi was a very specific girl. If it helped her more efficiently sink things, it was absorbed. Otherwise it went in one ear and out the other.

Incidentally, she was also banned from China. All she said was that Shanghai would be nicer under Japanese management!

Anyway, she'd gotten the main salient point: Fuso and Yamashiro did _not_ have a trio of Russian sisters.

Stepping back into Yokosuka's main halls, she just managed to get a glimpse of the two battleships rushing past, a bag with vodka bottles poking out slung over their shoulders and clad in the most erratic, haphazard sets of winter gear she'd ever seen. And she'd sortied to the Kuriles in January with the Shimakaze sisters.

"Oh, boy. Admiral Goto's not going to be happy about this," she grumbled.

~o~

Marat sighed as she gazed out over Kola Bay. Another fight with her sisters. So what if she stuck with her Soviet name? It wasn't like she was an actual, y'know, _communist_. But Gangut and Sevastopol didn't seem to get that. Not for the first time, she wished Poltava had come back, too. She had always been the most level-headed of them.

Sighing again, she stood to head back to Murmansk, but then spotted something on the horizon. At first, from the white, black, and dark grey, she thought they were icebergs. Then she spotted a spot of red on both objects, and that prompted her to hop down to the water and investigate.

As it turned out, the blobs were two white-and-red clad women with east Asian features, lying face-down in the water and cold as the metal their (presumably) ship selves had been made of.

"Huh," Marat muttered, before shrugging and slinging them both over her shoulders. "Ah well. When in doubt, punt it upstairs."

Unfortunately for the blood pressure of a great many Admirals, she didn't notice Yamashiro glance up with a possessive glint in her eyes.

~o~

"I see you found my wayward battleships," Admiral Goto said through gritted teeth.

 _"Yes. I could use some assistance getting them back to you,"_ the Russian Admiral said through equally clenched teeth. Behind him, Marat could be seen looking thoroughly uncomfortable under Yamashiro's ironclad grip.

 _"New sister..."_ she hissed. _"My sister... protect..."  
_  
"Yes, that is a problem," Goto continued. "Musashi should be in Vladivostok tomorrow to board a train to Murmansk. She should be sufficient."

 _"We'll fast track her,"_ the Russian Admiral stated. _"We eagerly await her arrival."  
_  
Admiral Goto pinched the bridge of his nose as the picture cut out. "And to think, they were some of my less problematic shipgirls..."


	341. Rule 1173

**Rule 1173. Letting destroyers to drink anything stronger than coffee is forbidden. ONLY Soviet destroyers are allowed to drink 110% pure vodka.  
**  
"Uh-oh."

Ikazuchi paused in her reading of Shonen Jump, and sent a curious glance at Hibiki. "What do you mean, 'uh-oh'?"

The white-haired destroyer turned a plaintive look on her sister, her whole body quivering. "M-My vodka stash... it's gone!"

As if on cue, the door swung open, admitting a disturbingly sober Junyo. "Hibiki, do you have any vodka I can borrow? Someone got into my stash and-" She went silent at the doe-eyed, tear-filled look on Hibiki's face, and began tearing up herself. "Noooooooo!"

"Noooooooo!"

"Shut up!" Ikazuchi howled, punting both shipgirls out of Desdiv 6's room. "You stupid drunks! Go be loud somewhere else!" The door slammed shut, and both Hibiki and Junyo stayed on the floor, clutching each other.

~o~

Noshiro and Yahagi stared at the scene before them, thoroughly confused.

"Slow down, you stupid stripper!" Amatsukaze shouted as she held a bottle of vodka in place in Shimakaze's mouth, the other destroyer looking distinctly green around the gills and frantically but ineffectually flailing at her assailant.

"Get off my sister!" Ookaze shouted, trying to pry Amatsukaze off and somehow failing miserably.

"S-Should we do something?" Yahagi wondered.

"Nah, too much work," Noshiro said, shrugging, before turning around and leaving. "Besides, I'd rather not get mauled trying to separate them."

Yahagi watched her lazy sister leave, and turned back to the scene in time to see Amatsukaze triumphantly wrench the bottle out of Shimakaze's mouth, the other destroyer staggering around, thoroughly drunk.

"Hey, y'stupid bitch!" Shimakaze slurred, jabbing a finger at a point six inches away from Amatsukaze's head. "Tha... wazzn't nize..."

The other destroyer snorted, not noticing Ookaze pale behind her. "What are you going to do, sway into me?"

As it turned out, Shimakaze did just that - hard enough to hip-check her through the wall.

"Nope," Yahagi immediately said, turning on her heel and retreating. "Nope nope nope."

~o~

"Heeeeeyyyyy... Jiiiiiintsuuuu..." Ushio slurred as she staggered forward towards her target.

The light cruiser in question took a hesitant step back at the sight of the curiously buxom destroyer with all traces of her usual shyness gone and replaced by pure _flirt_. That, and the half-empty bottle in her hand.

"Uh, Ushio..." she began, taking another step back in tandem with the destroyer.

"Sssshhh..." Ushio hissed, putting a finger to Jintsuu's lips and leaning over her. "No time for that. Just go with... it..."

Her head met Jintsuu's shoulder, the light cruiser barely daring to move. And then a sound not unlike snoring sounded out. Jintsuu glanced over, and- correction, that was snoring. She breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down, transferring an unconscious Ushio's head to her lap.

~o~

Captain Darren of the Philippine navy looked over the deployments of his small force of shipgirls and nodded. He'd have to ask the US Navy for a couple more destroyers, but it looked he'd be able to cover the archipelago this month, especially with all of the F-35s the US had practically thrown at them now operational in spite of the best efforts of the Philippine government.

His satisfaction at a job well done was cut short by the door being thrown open, admitting a blushing, swaying Murakumo clutching a nearly-full bottle in one hand.

"You!" the destroyer declared.

"Me?" he asked, pointing at himself.

"Yes, you!" Murakumo continued, staggering forwards. "You're the one who makes me feel these... things! Take responsibility, dammit!"

Captain Darren eyed her for a moment before replying. "Are you drunk, Murakumo?"

The destroyer took a classic oath-taking pose. "I swear to drunk I'm not God." She frowned. "Wait, that came out wrong..."

Sighing, Captain Darren stood and scooped the destroyer up in his arms as she swayed again. Drunk as she was, she didn't object.

"Oh, Murakumo..." he sighed quietly.

"Dumb captain..." the destroyer muttered. "Not even an Admiral..."


	342. Rule 1179

**Rule 1179. A lock of Enterprise's hair will not give you her power and luck. Stop telling everyone this.  
**  
Mogami stared at the small lock of blond hair she'd bribed Iku into pilfering from Yamato's room. This was it. No more would she be laughed at for her clumsiness. No more would there be snarky jokes about "The best torpedo salvo in history". She would leave it all behind.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a necklace with a small glass bottle inscribed with characters for transference, good luck, and other such useful concepts. Slowly, carefully - it wouldn't do to have an accident right on the brink of success - she uncorked the bottle, picked up the lock of hair, and slipped it into the bottle. And, done!

Grinning widely, the heavy cruiser stood and headed out for the torpedo firing ranges. Time to show everyone she wasn't the same old Mogami!

~o~

 **Fifteen minutes later:  
**  
Mogami laid slumped down on her knees, feeling tears well at the corners of her eyes, staring out at the scene before her. Beside her, Mikuma was nursing a growing goose egg and a baleful glare. On her other side was Admiral Goto, who was just gaping out onto the water.

"What... how did... I can't even... cognition can't..." he stammered out.

There was a sound of creaking metal as the JDS Atago settled a little further on the bottom of Yokosuka harbor.

"Well..." Ashigara drew out from behind her. "I'd say we're going to need to completely rebuild the torpedo range again. Ooyodo, did Akashi say how long it would be before Kumano was seaworthy again?"

"A week, at max," the bespectacled light cruiser replied before sighing. "That girl is _far_ too used to damage..."

"buh buh buh buh buh buh..."

The corpse of an Abyssal Ri-class cruiser slowly floated by, representing the one silver lining in this whole mess.

It wasn't enough. Mogami felt a burning rage build within her. She had put her faith in that lock of hair, and it hadn't worked. She wasn't going to just sit there and wonder what went wrong. She knew what had gone wrong!

A snarl spread across her face as she stood, drawing her arm back for the best throw she could muster - and in the process, losing her grip on the glass and sending the necklace flying backward hard enough to knock Admiral Goto flat on his ass.

"Ah! Admiral! I'm so sorry, I just don't know what went wrong!"

"Join the Navy, they said..."

~o~

Kiyoshimo glared at the lock of hair in front of her. After that incident with Iowa... she shuddered. Arms were not meant to bend that way! Anyway, it was time to put her plans to become a battleship on hold for a while. A carrier wasn't a battleship - but it would give her the hull to more easily make the transition.

The destroyer eyed the tome next to her. The owner of the mysterious shop she'd bought it from had assured her that it would work, but, well... she'd been through that song and dance before. Sighing, she grabbed some chalk and began drawing. Soon, a mystical circle was encircling the lock, and Kiyoshimo pressed her hands against it. A beat, and then the circle flared, consuming the hair in a flare of fire.

The destroyer tensed expectantly, but nothing happened to her. "Aww..." she moaned.

*OH YEAH!*

Her head whipped around at the sound of splintering concrete, revealing a pissed-off Yamato standing in the remnants of the wall, Enterprise clutched in one hand. Except it wasn't the familiar Enterprise everyone in Japan knew and feared. Instead of her long blond hair, tall, svelte form, and large breasts that were the envy of many a light carrier, she was shorter, flatter, with shorter hair and overall more youthful looks.

"Ki-yo-shi-mo..." Yamato growled, pushing her girlfriend forward. "Fix this!"

"Really, it's fine, sweetie," Enterprise said in an attempt to placate her girlfriend.

"No it's not!" Yamato insisted, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. "I need my Bustyprise!"

Enterprise sighed, and then turned the best glare the Grey Ghost could muster on Kiyoshimo. _"Fix it."  
_  
"Yes ma'am!" the destroyer barked before diving back into the book.


	343. Rule 1180

**Rule 1180. By popular request, all complaints about Iku are to be referred to Radford.  
**  
"Okay, that's it!" Kinugasa declared, slamming her hands on the table. "Iku has gone too far this time!"

"I agree," Nachi said, her arms crossed in front of her. "Too far this time, too far."

"Really, offering herself into a threesome with Ashigara and Captain Yonehara?" Myoko tsked in annoyance. "Doesn't she know that True Love should not be interfered with like that?"

The heavy cruiser paused, noting the eyes of everyone in the room on her and that fact that at some point she had stood up and clenched her fist in front of her.

"I thought we were talking about her breaking into my room while I was asleep," Haguro hesitantly stated. "And, um..." She mimed gripping two large, round... melons.

Three of the four other heavy cruisers in the room exchanged knowing looks at each other. "Looks like the little lewdmarine has been _busy_ ," Kinugasa growled.

"Bah, whatever, it's all harmless," Aoba scoffed dismissively. "She'll move onto other targets soon enough."

"And... what if she targets _you_?" Nachi pointed out.

"She won't, we have an agreement," Aoba replied, going back to checking her camera - and then suddenly doing a _magnificent_ double-take at whatever was on the screen. "That bitch took my camera!" she spat. "And took lewd photos of me! With my own camera! Okay, that's it, she's going down."

Nachi, Haguro, and Myoko barely resisted the urge to roll their eyes at the reporter girl's change of heart. Kinugasa... did not resist.

"Welcome to the movement, sister," she snarked. "So, does someone have a plan? As much as beating her senseless would be fun, it doesn't seem to actually do anything."

"Just you wait," Aoba growled. "I know someone, someone who even that lewdmarine fears."

"Kongo?"

"American, dammit!" the heavy cruiser snapped, before heaving a tired sigh. "Tell me. Does the name Radford mean anything to you?"

~o~

"Coming~!" Iku called as a knock on her door sounded out. She paused for a second to properly adjust her swimsuit before opening the door. "Hey! How can... I..."

She trailed off as she took in the sight in front of her. Flush deck. Twin funnels. Two Hedgehog projectors. Small flight deck and hangar. Oh dear. A Fletcher, and not just any Fletcher.

"Hello, I-19," Radford announced, a fairy sitting on her shoulder with a miniature RC controller. Iku couldn't help but notice that the tiny, wire-frame helicopter circling the destroyer changed directions every time the joystick did.

"P-Please, call me Iku!" the submarine said as she tried to de-escalate the situation.

"Anyway, _I-19_ , you're probably wondering why I'm here," the destroyer continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"N-Not really." Iku wasn't stupid; the only reason anybody would point her old _killer_ at her was if she'd seriously pissed them off with her usual antics.

"Well then," the American destroyer declared, cracking her knuckles. "Then you know exactly why this is coming."

Iku whimpered as the helicopter pitched up and entered a shallow dive, a lightweight ASW torpedo slung under its belly. This was gonna _suck._


	344. Rule 1183

**Rule 1183: Under no circumstances are unknown shipgirls flying the skull and crossbones to be brought to base. It is not worth it.**

 **Hornet AN: Rated R for Merry's filthy, filthy mouth. And my God, you guys have no idea how long I've been waiting to release this.**

Admiral Goto sighed, rubbing his temples. It was far too early in the morning for this shit. "Okay, Ooyodo… run this one by me again."

"Yes, Admiral," Ooyodo nodded as she adjusted her glasses. "Earlier this morning, Nagato had another Crossroads nightmare and decided to go out onto the water to clear her head. She found the brig sloop you see tied up at the pier just as it emerged from a fogbank."

Indeed, a medium-sized sailing ship was tied up the pier, and oh, what a bizarre ship it was. The lion's head at the front wasn't too unusual for its size and coloration, but the two cabins protruding from the poop deck, what for all the world looked like the back end of a large jet engine sticking out of the upper stern, a large circular port with a large '1' painted on the side, and the _tangerine trees_ dotting the deck were all quite different from what anyone familiar with the Age of Sail would expect. Most worrying, though, was the stylized skull and crossbones wearing a straw hat that was painted on the main sail and the black flag flying from the mainmast.

All in all, it was quite the intriguing ship, as ingenious as it was ludicrous. Indeed, kudos were to be given to whoever had figured out how to grow tangerines on board. No scurvy for them!

"Nagato boarded and found only a young girl frantically trying to run the ship, with a… surprising degree of success. It would appear that the helm and rigging have been configured so that they can be operated by a single person," Ooyodo continued. "The girl tried to run her off at first, but after Nagato explained that they were near Abyssal territory - and, interestingly, what the Abyssals were - she allowed her to tow the ship back here."

"Hmm, I see…" Admiral Goto nodded in understanding before turning around and marching down from the balcony overlooking the base's waterfront. "And what's become of the girl?"

"Ah, that's… complicated, sir."

Goto tensed in dread. Anything capable of making Ooyodo—who, as his secretary ship, dealt with almost as much shit as he did—uneasy was _guaranteed_ to be bad news. "What?"

"W-Well, you see, sir—" Ooyodo uncomfortably fiddled with her glasses as they arrived at the Admiral's office. "A-As you know, Kongo has been researching methods for you and her to have children once the war is over."

"And?"

"Well…" Ooyodo scratched the back of her head. "You see, there are other ships in the Fleet who share her desires, save that most of them are nowhere near as… shall we say, 'optimistic'?"

"What does any of this have to do with the situation at hand?"

Ooyodo sighed wearily as she laid her hands on the door. "It has everything do with the situation—" The light cruiser pushed the door open, revealing the scene inside. "Because Nagato is one of those ships."

Within Goto's office were a pair of individuals, one familiar and the other not. One was the battleship Nagato who, for her part, looked simply ecstatic as she squeezed, nuzzled, and practically smothered the head of the child she was lovingly (some might say desperately) clutching to her… ample fuel tanks. Meanwhile, said child, a young girl, was a stranger to Goto, and an oddly-dressed one at that: the hood of the orange raincoat she was wearing was pulled down to reveal a shock of white hair with swirls of brown above her ears, a metal choker wrapped around her neck that slightly matched the anklets affixed around her flailing heels, and gray leggings poked out from under the bottom of said coat. Her face was one that would likely have been absolutely adorable, if not for the fact that it was twisted in rage.

Then again, considering what some of the other girls on base wore, this was practically normal.

"—rat-infested cum-hauling termite-ridden low-grade-copper-plated—!"

"Is she a shipgirl?" Goto asked, an eyebrow raised at the steady stream of profanity flowing from the mouth of a girl who looked no older than his destroyers. "She's certainly got the mouth for it. I've heard less imaginative swearing while I was serving my commission."

"We're… not quite sure," Ooyodo replied, her lips pursed. "We _think_ so, mostly due to Nagato squeezing her hard enough to crack ribs on a normal person, but when she forced her to disembark from the ship she was on—not an easy feat, mind you—she sank like a stone the moment she hit the water. But even then, well…" She searched for the words for a moment before shrugging helplessly. "I don't know what to say, Admiral, it's… just a feeling. Kinship, however tangential. I can… we can all tell she's a shipgirl. Whether by instinct or something else."

"Mm, no, I know the feeling," Goto said. After all, with Admirals across the world getting shipgirl powers, this… intuition would logically be one of them. "Nevertheless, if she is a shipgirl, a few questions arise: who is she? Who summoned her? And more importantly, what will we do with her?"

"Oh, Admiral, Admiral!" Nagato suddenly piped up. "Yes, I volunteer, I'll adopt her!"

"You'll _what!?"_ Goto choked incredulously, while Ooyodo slapped her hand to her face with a weary groan.

The foreign shipgirl, for her part, was much more vocal in her disagreement to the idea.

" _EXCUSE ME?!"_ she screeched, a slight accent seeming to slip into her voice.

"You heard me! I'll adopt you!" Nagato squealed eagerly as she spun the girl around. "Oooh, it'll be perfect! I'll be a mommy and Hoppo-chan will be a big sister! Oh! And I can call Colorado and tell her the news! She'll be thrilled to be a daddy! Then we'll all be one big happy family! Won't that be nice?"

Faintly, Goto almost swore he could hear a shout of "WHAT?!" coming from the general direction of Bremerton. Probably his imagination. Though with his luck, not something to count on.

The girl stared at Nagato like she'd grown a second head, her eye twitching furiously for a moment before she bared her teeth and spat—nay, _howled—_ out a reply. "NO, YE GALLEON-HUMPING SEA KING-SUCKING LEAKY-HULLED CRACKED-KEEL SCURVY-RIDDEN _HAG!"_ the shipgirl raged, sounding for all the world like a genuine grog-and-flintlock buccaneer. "I DON'T WANNA BE ADOPTED! I'VE ALREADY GOT MESELF A FAMILY, AND WHEN THEY FIND ME, THEY ARE GOING TO SEND EACH AND EVERYONE OF YE MARINE ROWBOATS STRAIGHT TO DAVY JONES' LOCKER, FASTER THAN YOU CAN SAY ' _BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES'! DO I MAKE MESELF—MMMPH!?"_

The girl was cut off by Nagato shoving her head between her massive… guns. "Isn't she simply adorable?" she crooned, rubbing the girl's' hair lovingly (if a bit obsessively). "I'm going to love her and pet her and feed her—!"

" _MMMMPH!"_ The shipgirl's struggles all but quintupled in Nagato's grip, taking on a _very_ vivid hint of desperation. Still, she was no match for the force of the battleship's motherly love. That, and her 91,000-horsepower grip.

"Nagato…" Ooyodo sighed as she observed the sadly familiar madness unfurling before her. "Before this debacle devolves into a very twisted rendition of 'Of Mice and Men', I have but one question for you: do you even know this girl's name?"

"Of course I do!" Nagato indignantly replied. "It's… uh, it's…" She shifted her grip on the girl slightly as she tried to tap her lip in thought. "Give me a second, oka—YARGH!"

Goto raised an eyebrow as the girl took advantage of a slight slip in Nagato's grip to chomp down on her thumb with all the tenacity of a fighting pit bull. The sight of the battleship flailing around, trying to shake the girl off and failing miserably, was quite comical, and it served a dual purpose: first, it proved pretty conclusively that the girl was a shipgirl, because only a shipgirl would have the capacity to bite _that_ hard and hang on for so long, and second, it irrefutably proved that Nagato was nowhere near ready to be anything resembling a parental figure. At least, not if the way she was repeatedly slamming the strange shipgirl's head against the wall in an effort to dislodge her was anything to go by.

Still, however fun this was to watch, they were in his office and he had a base to run.

"Nagato, you are not adopting this girl."

Both Nagato and the unknown froze, the battleship's boot firmly on the smaller girl's torso.

"I'm not?" Nagato whimpered, laying on a dose of puppy-dog eyes.

"Suc' it, bi—ACK!" the young girl started to crow before she was dislodged due to opening her jaw too much, bouncing off the wall as a result. "OW! Son of a—did they _not_ shatter the bottle at your launching or something?"

"No," Goto repeated firmly to Nagato, by now thoroughly immune to all forms of puppy-dog eyes and distracting antics. "And that's final. And now that that's settled, might I ask what your name is, young lady?"

The unknown girl eyed the Admiral and shipgirls for a moment, before standing up straight and shooting a defiant glare at Goto. "Going Merry, Helmsman of the Straw Hat Pirates, 25 million beris," she announced proudly.

Goto blinked in surprise at the all-too-familiar greeting, taking a moment to puzzle out what the rest of it meant. "I'm assuming that was your version of name, rank, and serial number, but that last part… berries?"

"Weeell…" Merry tilted her head to the side as she trailed off. "It's supposed to be 'Name, rank and bounty', seeing how we don't have numbers. Cross said to only say that if the Marines ever questioned us because it'd drive them nuts, but really, we tend to drive you bastards way crazier with what we say than anything else."

Goto glanced at Ooyodo, who had a look on her face that said she was reading as much context, missing or otherwise, from Merry's words as he was.

Finally, Goto crouched down on his knee and looked the girl in the eye, ignoring the defiant way she glared at him. "This Cross sounds like a very smart person. Is he one of the friends who would be coming to get you?"

Merry's facade cracked instantly as she lit up with pride and glee. "Yup! Cross has to be smart, 'cause he's the third mate and Captain's an idiot! He's also the tactician, and the Commie—" All three fleet-members stiffened in alarm. "—but he calls himself a communications officer—" Before relaxing in relief. "—and the public relations officer, and the guy who takes care of all the animals! Oh, oh, and he's also on the World Government's Top Twenty Most Wanted List because he starts wars around the world with his words!"

Goto's eye twitched furiously as he reconciled the words 'Top Twenty Most Wanted' with the idea of 'proximity to and loyalty of shipgirls' before returning to the task at hand. "That sounds… very impressive. Although, seeing how you came here on what I assume was your crew's ship—?"

"That was an accident! That fogbank came out of _nowhere!_ I was just taking Big Bro Sunny out for a run around the island we were docked at!" Merry pouted furiously. "We didn't leave the coastline, and the log pose in his helm still hadn't synced up yet! But the next thing I knew, I was getting attacked by these monster ships and _then_ I was attacked by that _Marine-lubber of a wench_ and—!"

"Yes, well!" Goto hastily cut her off before she could build herself into a lather. "The point is, your crew doesn't have a ship and the phenomenon that brought you here was unique, so how do you think they'll follow you here?"

Merry blinked as she considered what the Admiral said before smiling cheerfully. "They'll prolly' steal themselves a ship the second they realize I'm gone and follow me here. They'll find a way no matter what, come hell, high water or Marine fleet. They're…" Her expression took on a wistful overtone. "They're kind of awesome like that."

Ooyodo was forced to hide a smile as she observed the genuine adoration only a shipgirl could lavish on her crew, while Nagato shrunk in on herself as the display served to convince her that the precious child before her would never show her the same love in a million years.

"I'm glad to hear that," Goto nodded firmly. "Well, in the meantime, why don't you stay here while you wait for them?"

 _That_ served to snap Merry's mood right around, prompting her to snarl viciously at the Admiral. "Me, willingly stay on a _Marine base!?_ You must have barnacles growing on your brain! If you think I'll ever willingly stay with you _rudder-less lapdogs, THEN YE'VE GOT ANOTHER THING—!"_

"Well, that's too bad," Ooyodo cut in hastily. "Mamiya, one of our better cooks, was _just_ putting the finishing touches on a batch of cookies."

Merry trailed off slowly as she narrowed her eyes at the light cruiser. "What kind?"

"Chocolate chocolate chip."

Merry held the expression for a second before brightening up with a sunny grin. "Well, lead the way!"

"Sure thing, could you just wait outside for a moment? The Admiral and I need to…" She glanced at Goto. "Discuss matters?"

Merry frowned for a moment before shrugging in agreement. "Eh, whatever. Cookies!"

The second the small shipgirl was outside, Admiral and light cruiser looked at each other in disbelief.

"I can confirm with certainty that there is no one with the name 'Cross' on _any_ Top Ten Most Wanted list in any country I am aware of, much less that of a 'World Government'," Ooyodo swiftly informed him.

"Is it possible that she could be from some form of… alternate reality? One whose history is different from our own?" Goto posited.

"Things _are_ mad enough around here that I wouldn't discount it as a possibility," Ooyodo sighed wearily. "Your orders, Admiral?"

Goto was silent for a moment as he considered things before shaking his head. "There's nothing we _can_ do. I'll call Briggs and Cunningham to see if they're missing any of their sail girls, but I won't hold my breath. For now, we wait and accommodate her the best we can. With any luck, her crew is as resourceful as she makes them sound, so they'll be able to find their way here. From there, we hand her off, and hopefully wipe our hands of this affair. We already have enough problems in our world, I don't want the Diet getting on my back for getting us embroiled with another."

Ooyodo nodded in understanding. "Glad to hear it." She slowly glanced to the side. "And, uh what about—?"

Goto followed her gaze and promptly stiffened in terror. Nagato was, well, not crying, not yet, but that was the issue: she was right on the _borderline_ of breaking into tears. If she crossed that line, she'd set herself on a course for the galley and wouldn't stop until every carton of ice cream on base was thoroughly emptied.

Goto was about to resign himself to dipping into what was known as the 'Yukikaze Trust Fund' to keep the destroyers from revolting when someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!" he called out, breathing an internal sigh of relief as the white form of the Northern Ocean Princess—better known as Hoppo-chan—popped her head into the office.

Almost instantly, the battleship was snapped out of her funk as she hoisted the Abyssal into the air and bounced her over her head. "Oh, hello, Hoppo-chan!" she cooed eagerly. "What are you doing here? Are you hungry? Awww, poor thing! Come on, let's go and get you something to eat! Who's a good girl? You are, yes, you are!"

Hoppo shot a thumbs up over Nagato's shoulder at Goto as she was carried out of the office, a motion that the Admiral returned in relief.

Merry came back into the office a moment later with a dark look on her face. "I almost became _that?_ I swear, if I _ever_ end up in that kind of a situation, you're all waking up with your heads twisted on the wrong way."

"Duly noted," Goto nodded with a weary sigh. "Now, Ooyodo—"

He started to turn towards his secretary, only to freeze as he felt something start to tug at the back of his pants. Before he could react, there was the sound of shredding cloth, followed closely by the feel of a breeze around his legs. He whirled around to see Merry munching on his trousers, slurping up his pants leg with an innocent grin on her face.

"Nice heart boxers, Admiral," Ooyodo snickered, doing a bad job of hiding her grin behind her hand.

"Just… Just get her to Mamiya's, and then to one of the destroyer divisions."

~o~

"Come in," Goto announced a few hours later as he worked on some paperwork, waiting for a chance to call Briggs in Norfolk and Cunningham in Portsmouth.

The door opened, admitting a rather frazzled Tenryuu.

"Tenryuu," Goto said, sighing. "Let me guess, Merry?"

"This isn't going to work, Admiral," Tenryuu bit out.

Goto frowned. Tenryuu had a reputation for being able to handle _any_ destroyer. She had wrangled the Taffies, and so far only Shimakaze on a sugar high had defeated her. "That bad?"

"She decided to share a few sea shanties with my destroyers," the light cruiser spat.

"I dread the answer, but… shanties?"

Tenryuu's eye twitched viciously as she recalled the scene she'd walked in on.

~o~

" _Alright, everyone, all together now! Ooooh, there once was a Marine from Enies, whose head was shaped like a—!"_

~o~

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Goto cried out, warding off the song with his hands and doing his best to keep the light cruiser from unconsciously pulping the edge his desk with her hands. "Don't worry, I'll move her. Is the corruption permanent?"

Tenryuu took a moment to blow a calming breath out her nose before slowly shaking her head. "No, no, it isn't, thank _God_. Still, I sent 'em to Hosho, just to be sure."

"Alright," Goto said, quickly printing a sheet and filling it out. "Get Merry and this to Sendai. I'm fairly certain that Desdiv 11 can handle her."

"Thanks, Admiral, that's all I ask." With a lazy salute, Tenryuu sauntered out the door, clearly in a much better mood. Smiling, Goto turned back to his work, but not before making a note.

 **1423\. Sail girls are not allowed to teach destroyers sea shanties.**

With any luck, Desdiv 11—or rather, Fubuki—would be _much_ better equipped to handle their visitor.

~o~

"Alright, ladies and rowboats, the name of the game is South Blue Hold 'em!" Merry grinned as she shuffled the deck eagerly. "Aces are high, the joker's wild, and gold doubloons are the preferred currency."

" _And_ the house gets half the pot when all's said and done!" Sendai piped up eagerly.

"I _still_ say that this is a gross breach of protocol…" Murakumo grouched as she shifted her hand around.

"Heh, you sound like Fubuki," Hatsuyuki chuckled softly as she slouched on a cushion.

"Yeah, dumb old Fubuki would _hate_ us having this much fun!" Sendai laughed in agreement.

"Um, that's not very nice…" Shirayuki softly admonished her ostensible superior.

"She _is_ right though," Hatsuyuki chuckled lazily.

SLAM! "AHA!" Fubuki roared as she kicked the closet door open, causing the shipgirls to jump.

"It was all their idea, I had nothing to do with this," Hatsuyuki drawled as she let the cards fall from limp fingers.

" _PRIVATEER!"_ Merry howled in betrayal.

"Now now, Fubuki, let's not all go crazy here…" Sendai said placatingly, motioning for the destroyer to calm down.

"I'm telling Admiral Goto about this!"

"GET HER!" Sendai roared as she jabbed a finger at her nominal subordinate.

"YEAH, GET HER!" Merry concurred as she swung her arm up to mirror the motion… and promptly froze in horror as a flurry of cards flew from her sleeve, cold sweat pouring down her in torrents as she felt the whole of Desdiv 11 glaring at her as one.

Well, Murakumo, Sendai, and Fubuki glared. Hatsuyuki didn't give a shit, and Shirayuki was too nice to glare.

"Ah, _damn it_. And Nami makes this seem so natural, too…" the caravel muttered to herself before grinning sheepishly. "Aheheh… ah… Is it too late to mulligan or—?"

"GET HER!" Sendai howled as she leapt at the small girl, a motion the two motivated destroyers mirrored.

~o~

Goto cocked an eyebrow as he looked at the overturned cardboard box before him. "And where did you get the idea for this, exactly?"

"Cross mentioned that it was a cliché from where he was from. It works surprisingly well!" Merry's voice glibly informed him.

"Uh-huh… And you thought starting a gambling ring was a good idea… why?"

"Always best to have some money on hand! Plus it's fun, of course."

"Of course."

"So, ah, do I just go back to them or…?"

"I'll call ahead to Jintsuu and tell her you'll be staying with Desdiv 16. They're that way."

The silence hung heavy in the air for a moment.

"Ah…?"

"To your left, sorry."

"Right!"

"No no, your other left!"

"Right again!"

Goto groaned as he slapped a hand to his face. The other Admirals couldn't call soon enough.

The second he returned to his desk, he swiftly made yet another note.

 **1424\. No organized gambling rings are to be organized without inviting the Admiral.**

He paused as he felt Ooyodo and Kongo glare at the back of his head through the rest of the base before putting another line below.

 **1424a. Correction: No gambling rings, period, organized or unorganized.**

~o~

"You need to do something about this devil child, _now!"_ Victorious snarled as she slammed a chain-wrapped Merry down on the Admiral's desk.

"Heya, Goat-y!" Merry snickered. "Long time no see! How's tricks?"

Goto stared at her for a moment before eyeing the British fleet assembled before him. "What did she do this time?"

"Absolutely nothing! I have been the _picture_ of innocence!"

"You've been a _horrid_ influence on every destroyer you've come in contact with!" King George V spat.

"Balderdash! Cockamamy! Lies and slander!"

"Now, girls," Goto said, holding his hands up placatingly. "I realize that there have been some issues with Merry, but surely—!"

"She convinced Desflot 24 to set up a bootleg rum distillery in their room!"

Goto froze at that before slowly staring flatly at Merry. "… _Really?"_

Merry pursed her lips for a moment before shrugging innocently. "In my defense, it took a _lot_ of convincing to get them to do it."

"They had it set up within an hour!" Argonaut shrieked.

"As I said, a _lot_ of convincing."

"I last saw you _two_ hours ago," Goto deadpanned.

Merry froze as she considered that before shrugging. "I… have no excuse. Though I _do_ wonder why they were so reluctant."

"That's because they're overcoming fucking _alcoholism,_ just like the rest of us!" Victorious spat. "And you just set them back by _months_!"

"Well I wouldn't have gone to them if Desdiv 16 had agreed to help me!" Merry raged. "But _nooooo,_ they _insisted_ that the damn thing spit out sake! Do I look like a green-haired swordsman to you!? Tsk, I bet they're _still_ making a mint off of my blueprints…"

Goto snapped his fingers, prompting Ooyodo to dash out of the room, before focusing back on Merry. "So far, you have managed to subvert, corrupt, and overall exploit well over a dozen of the shipgirls under my command. Tell me right now why I shouldn't throw you in the brig and be done with you."

Merry's eyes practically doubled in size as she stared tearfully at Goto. "Because I'm an adorable bundle of joy and innocence who can do no wrong."

"Desdiv 6 has that trick down to an artform. Pull the other one, it's got whistles and bells on it," Goto stated flatly.

Merry's expression flipped into a sadistic grin. "Because if my crew finds me behind bars, they will rip your base up by the fucking _foundation_ and kick your rudders six ways from Sunday in the process, and trust me, that's _not_ an exaggeration on my part."

Goto was silent for a moment before looking at Victorious. "Take her to Abukuma and Kinu. I've already written Desdiv 24 off as a lost cause anyways, one more won't hurt."

"Aye-aye, sir," Victorious saluted tiredly before picking up Merry. "Come on, you _menace."_

"That's _White Menace_ to you! And do you think we can swing by Desflot 24's room on the way? I stashed a bottle beneath my bed before you raided us and—MMPH!"

"Thank you," Goto sighed in relief as the troublemaker was finally gagged. He then wearily jotted down yet _another_ note, before remembering that they'd already written this one down.

 **691\. The still in the repair ship's barracks has to go.**

He still didn't know _what_ he had been thinking, sending Junyou to dispose of it. Goto allowed himself a weary grin as he leaned back in his seat. Merry was living up to her apparent _nom de guerre_ , but he had an appointment with Cunningham and Briggs soon, so things would hopefully turn out for the best soon enough.

~o~

He wasn't smiling a half hour later as he talked to the other admirals.

"So, none of your sail girls are missing," he repeated flatly.

" _Nope, sorry,"_ Admiral Cunningham said over the conference video call.

"… Are you sure none of you _want_ a ship girl?"

" _Nice try, Goto, but Victorious already called us. Count yourself lucky I managed to stop Indefatigable and Implacable from leaving Portsmouth,"_ Admiral Cunningham stated neutrally.

"Damn it," Goto spat to himself, before blinking. "Wait, which—"

" _Both of them."_

" _Either way,"_ Briggs cut in. " _I do not envy you if you have to handle a sail girl, especially one who claims to be a pirate."_

Goto frowned. "Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

" _Simple: most sail girls are crazy. Well, crazier than their steel counterparts, at any rate. We think it has something to do with age. Turns out that World War II_ wasn't _the high point of insanity in the history of humanity,"_ Briggs answered. " _Anyways, the frigates are the craziest of them all, and all of them are_ warships _, not pirates. If she_ is _a pirate shipgirl as she claims?"_ The American admiral shuddered dramatically. " _Pray that her crew actually does manage to take her off your hands, and soon."_

" _Oh, one more thing,"_ Cunningham added. " _Fair warning, we've been doing exercises with Trincomalee, and she maneuvers_ very _differently from steam-powered girls. Southampton was having serious trouble targeting her. Chances are, due to how different their thought processes are, your more modern shipgirls will have a hard time getting a bead on her."_

Goto sighed. Well, that wasn't as bad as he'd feared.

It was worse.

"Well, thank you for your time, gentlemen," he replied. "Now, we're all busy men, so I won't hold you here any longer. Goodbye."

As the teleconference ended, Goto leaned back in his chair, and resolved not to think about the small sail girl until he had to.

~o~

Merry carefully modulated her breathing as she stared up into the ceiling of the room she'd been moved to, wide awake. The caravel felt a slight twinge of regret at what she was about to do; the girls of Desdiv 6 had been _so_ fun to try and corrupt, especially Inazuma, who was very clearly slamming face-first into puberty; Desdiv 11's members were alright when they weren't narking on her; and Desflot 24 were _really_ fun drunks. As for Desdiv 24, they were just crazy, but in a fun way. Hell, even her minders had been nice. Tenryuu reminded her of Nami, Sendai was hilarious, and Abukuma was just _so adorable!_ trying to be authoritative.

Still, this wasn't her world, and she needed to get back to the Sunny, back out to sea, back to her crew. And she had a plan for that too: sneak out, get to the Sunny, and take down everyone in her way.

Okay, not a great plan, but it was more than what her Captain had done on many occasions! Heck, it was better than half of Cross's plans, too.

Sitting up, she listened for any change. Nothing. She slid out of bed, still clad in her clothes, and froze as she heard a rustle of cloth.

"Pink elephants… on parade…" Kagero mumbled as she rolled over in bed.

Merry heaved a silent sigh of relief and slipped her coat's hood up. Standing in front of the door, she schooled her expression, opened the door—and nearly blurted out a blue streak when she saw Kinu, Abukuma's sister, standing in front of her.

"Oh, hey, Merry," the light cruiser said, mildly surprised and slightly groggy from waking up. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

"Y-Yeah." Merry hastily slid into character, putting as much youthful wobble into her voice and eyes as she danced from foot to foot. "A-And I don't know where it is. Can you help me? I don't wanna go wee-wee in my panties…"

"Aww, there, there…" Kinu said sweetly as she tousled the caravel's hair. "Alright! Follow me, then."

Kinu turned around, and thus did not notice a bloodthirsty grin spread across Merry's face.

"Come on, it's just this—!"

KLONG!

"OW!" Kinu yelped, wheeling around and clutching the back of her skull in pain. "What was that for!?"

Merry blinked in confusion as she hefted the frying pan she was holding. "But Cross said that always—oh, no, wait, I see what I did wrong! Hold still a second!"

"What are you—!?" Merry interrupted Kinu by jumping up and _slamming_ the frying pan into her face, putting her out like a light.

Merry nodded satisfaction as she spun the frying pan in her grip. "Right! Front of the head for K.O., back for trauma. Alright, now what's next… Oh, right! Stash the body!"

Merry grabbed Kinu under her armpits, eased the door to Desdiv 24's room open, and left her slumped on the floor. Hopefully no one would notice her for a while.

She'd barely gone two steps when she heard Kasumi shriek in terror from the room.

"Okay, on to Cross's Plan B," she muttered as she broke into a sprint. "Run like hell!"

~o~

" _Alright, Admiral, we've got her now! Just give me a few minutes alone with her and—WARGH!"_

"Murakumo!" Goto shouted into the radio as an explosion rocked the base. "What happened?"

" _She's_ throwing _torpedoes at us!"_

"She doesn't have rigging! How—!"

" _No, I mean she found the armory and is_ literally _picking up torpedoes and throwing them at us! And they keep freaking_ exploding!"

Goto winced and once again cursed the bright spark who had come up with oxygen propulsion for the Long Lance. "Are you okay?"

" _Eurgh, yeah, but she blasted the corridor to hell and back. We're gonna need to go the long way around, and she's gonna get away. Again."_

"Fall back, Murakumo, Shigure," Goto ordered. "Nagato and Kongo are guarding her ship. She's not going anywhere."

~o~

Merry grit her teeth as she looked out on the shipgirls crowding the pier in front of her. A half dozen destroyers, a heavy cruiser with her seaplanes out, and battleships Nagato and Kongo.

Not that Merry knew that. All she knew was that there were six little ones, two big ones, a new medium type, and that all of them could reduce her to splinters in short order. Worse, she couldn't think of a way to get past them.

A finger tapped on her shoulder, and Merry whirled around, rearing her fist back to try and punch out whoever had snuck up on her. It worked on the little ones, at least.

As it turned out, though, it was just Hoppo-chan.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered furiously before stiffening in terror. "Don't tell me that gaol-galleon is here! Because I swear, I love my crew, but I will _scuttle_ myself before I surrender to her!"

Hoppo answered by frantically shaking her head before pointing upwards. Merry followed the finger to see a metal grating, leading into some kind of vent or duct.

"Oh, I see," Merry said, grinning. "A Cross classic. Don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place! Thanks, I owe you one."

The white girl gave a thumbs-up, and began walking in the opposite direction, leaving Merry to jump up, rip open the grate, and crawl into the vent.

~o~

"No sign of her!" Murakumo and Shigure reported as they ran up to the pier.

"My seaplanes aren't finding anything, either," Chikuma reported, before wincing miserably. "Correction: they just found _another_ Molotov cocktail trap. Goddamn it, how many of those bottles did she _stash!?"_

"Well, if she's trying to wear us down, she won't succeed!" Nagato announced. "I want CONSTANT VIGILANCE! AND MY CUDDLES!"

"You have ISSUES, Nagato. You have _very_ bad ISSUES…" Kongo muttered absentmindedly.

Nagato blinked, noticing that Kongo was staring at a section of the wall instead of her. "Kongo, what are you—"

"Shigure, Murakumo!" the fast battleship suddenly barked. "Go check the vents!"

Nagato paled as she realized that one of the vents opened up _behind_ their task force, barely a few feet from the ship. She paled further when she noticed that said vent had been kicked open.

"Then that means—!"

"Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!"

The shipgirls on the pier spun towards the Thousand Sunny, seeing Merry poke her head out from behind the lion's head.

"Sucks to be you lot!" she laughed. "I'm on my big brother now, and there's not a fucking thing you salt huffers can do about it!"

"Merry, please!" Nagato pleaded. "We have…" She glanced around the task force. "Enough firepower to level a small city! Don't make us use it!"

Merry grinned viciously as she reached for a _very_ comforting lever. "Oh, that's _really_ impressive. I'm _so_ scared. Here's my response!" She ducked back behind Sunny's head as she yanked the lever. An ominous clunk echoed out, followed by the lion's head opening and revealing a metallic barrel.

Nagato blinked in confusion. "What the heck—"

"Everybody move!" Kongo barked, diving downward.

" **Gaon Cannon, bitches!"** Merry cackled.

There was an almighty roar as a veritable hurricane of compressed air blasted out from the lion's head. The shipgirls on the pier were simply not heavy enough, regardless of how strong they were, to withstand the blast, and were sent flying. And the buildings fared even worse. As the Gaon Cannon finished roaring, Yokosuka's waterfront was in ruins.

"Later, suckers!" Merry cackled, throwing the rudder hard right and flipping a myriad of levers and toggles as she activated Chicken Voyage, wheeling Sunny around and dropping his sails. Soon she was out of the harbor and heading out into Tokyo Bay.

Of course, as this was Tokyo Bay, waiting for her at the mouth was a _very_ unwelcome sight.

"Please turn back, Miss Merry!" Yamato called, her rigging fully deployed. "We don't want to hurt you!"

"Speak for yourself," came a voice from the starboard side of the ship. Merry's head whirled to that side to see a swimsuit-clad girl poking her head out of the water and aiming a rather large gun at the Sunny.

"That's mean, Imuya!" Goya spoke up from the other side.

Merry looked between the two submarines flanking her and the battleship before her, then put on a brave face and looked back at Yamato, her hand inching towards the Coup de Burst lever all the while. "Oh, yeah? I faced down a fleet of warships ten times your size to save my crew, and I came out of that without a scratch! Give me _one_ reason why this should be any different!"

Yamato sighed, and then there was an almighty bang. Merry's eyes widened as a massive cloud of smoke and fire enveloped the battleship, and she just barely saw the massive shell fly just past the bow before hitting the sea and throwing up a column of water taller than the Sunny's masts.

The caravel trembled furiously for a second as she thought _very_ carefully before ultimately sighing in defeat and letting go of Sunny's controls, wincing as the ship groaned miserably.

"That's a good reason…" she whimpered.

~o~

"I gotta say," Tenryuu drawled as she steamed alongside the Thousand Sunny, which was being towed by Yamato. "I honestly don't know whether to cheer you on for being a complete badass, or give you spanking for being a bad girl."

A muffled mumble about Tenryuu blowing something out of her magazine was Merry's only response, and Tenryuu sighed and pulled a little closer.

"Look, kid," she began. "You've just pulled off a massive accomplishment. How many shipgirls can say they fought their way, single-handedly, out of an entire naval base? Be proud of that, at least." She tapped her chin in thought. "Come to think of it, why didn't you just sail out yourself? I heard that you sank after Nagato dropped you in the water, so why's that? Why'd you have to ride your…" She glanced at Sunny's figurehead. "'Big bro'?"

Silence.

"Well, either way, we're here," Tenryuu sighed as the Thousand Sunny nosed back up to the pier, a scorched and battered Kongo and Nagato waiting and looking quite peeved. As the pier workers began wrestling with the ropes, Merry hopped down from the deck and stomped past Tenryuu, snarling and growling viciously under her breath.

"Alright, then," the light cruiser said, slapping the other girl's back. "I can see you don't wanna talk about… this…" Frowning, Tenryuu suddenly knelt down and pulled up Merry's coat and the shirt underneath.

"Hey, watch it! I thought that Nagato bitch was the pedophile, not you! Help, bad touch! Bad touch!" the shipgirl snapped in the first real display of emotion since Tenryuu had arrived, drawing Nagato and Kongo's attention in the process. "What in the name of Davy Jones do you think you're—!"

"What happened here?" Tenryuu hissed, her voice dripping with barely restrained fury. Behind her, she could hear Yamato gasp and Kongo suck in a breath.

Merry instantly froze as she felt the cruiser's fingers run across her back, tracing over the livid scar that ran just below her shoulder blades. The expanse of mutilated flesh was jagged, deep, and stretched clear across her entire back.

Scars were not common for shipgirls. Arizona and Warspite were the only ones Tenryuu could recall off the top of her head that had any, and the wounds that left them had not only been fatal and crippling, respectively, but beyond traumatic to boot. This… This was nearly on par.

"O-Oh, that?" Merry hedged nervously. "I-It's, ah, just an old wound, nothing to worry abou—"

"Bullshit," Tenryuu spat, her vision flashing red as she scanned the bands of metal around the girl's neck and ankles. "What- What happened to you? An accident, enemy action!? Or…" She narrowed her eyes viciously as a thought struck her. "Your _cr—?"_

" _HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!"_

The warships leapt in shock when Merry spun around and _roared_ at them, exhibiting more raw fury then most of them had seen in their whole existences.

By which we mean, since the last time someone had interrupted Kongo's tea hour.

" _WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF SAYING ANYTHING,_ ANYTHING _ABOUT MY CREW!? ABOUT MY_ FAMILY!?" Merry demanded, glaring viciously at Tenryuu. " _YOU KNOW ABSOLUTELY JACK_ SHIT _ABOUT THEM! YOU WANT SOMEONE TO BLAME FOR THAT SCAR!? THEN YOU CAN FUCKING BLAME_ ME!"

"W-What!?" Nagato sputtered in shock. "No, no, Merry! That's not—!"

"YES, IT IS!" Merry shrieked. "I KNEW IT WAS COMING, I COULD FEEL IT COMING IN MY PLANKS AND I LIED TO MY CREW WHEN THEY ASKED IF I WAS OKAY!"

Kongou blinked in confusion. "Huh? Wait, lied? What are you—?"

"I used a _Klabautermann_ to try and fix myself!" the caravel hissed.

The warships gasped in shock. "A-A Klabautermann!?" Tenryuu choked. "Merry, that's an _incredibly_ risky—!"

"My keel _fucking_ _cracked_ that day, I was _so_ far beyond risk!" Merry plowed onwards. "It cracked, and Cross tried to help me, and I lied to his _face_ when he asked me if I was alright! I _lied_ to him after he _helped me!_ I was ready to give up and _sink_ for their sakes, but he convinced me to keep fighting, to _live!_ If it weren't for him, I would have let myself sink _then and there!"_

Tenryuu swallowed heavily as she tried to steady her nerve. "Ah—M-Merry, I—!"

"I had no right to live!" Merry shouted, advancing on Tenryuu in a haze of fury. "I had every reason to sink myself, I _should_ have sunk for their sakes, but he told me otherwise! He told me it wasn't wrong to dream of staying with them, he told me it was alright for me to _live!_ Thanks to him, thanks to all of their support, I carried them for _two. Months!_ And even after they found out I wasn't fixable, after it was apparent that I was little more than a floating pile of kindling, _they_ _still fought to keep me with them!"_

Tenryuu hastily backpedalled as a blazing red aura grew up behind Merry, the caravel still advancing. "SO DON'T YA FUCKIN' _DARE_ IMPLY THAT ME CREW DID THIS TA ME! THOSE BRAVE BASTARDS, THOSE _GODSENDS, THEY FOUGHT TOOTH AND NAIL TO KEEP ME! THEY BROKE_ REALITY ITSELF _TO MAKE ME WHO I AM! SO WHEN YOU SPEAK ILL O' THAT SCAR, YOU SPEAK ILL A' ME, BECAUSE IT'S A MARK OF ME OWN STUBBORN PRIDE, AND IT IS A BADGE OF MY_ FUCKING _HONOR AS NOT ONLY A PIRATE BUT A STRAW HAT PIRATE TO BOOT!_ _ **DO I MAKE MESELF—!?"**_

" _A—damn it—Attention, Marine base!"_

All five shipgirls jumped as they were suddenly interrupted. Whirling around, four of the five blinked in confusion as they were confronted with the bizarre sight of what appeared to be a three-masted broadside sloop-of-war. The hull was painted a deep blue-grey and what looked like a seagull was painted on the sails alongside the word MARINE. And more importantly, the ship looked like it was in incredibly rough condition, barely qualifying as seaworthy.

" _Ah-hem,"_ the voice from before boomed through the air _. "I repeat, attention Marine Base! This is, ah… Commodore Gendarme of the Marines? We have received reports that 'White Menace' Going Merry and the Strawhats' ship were in port, so thanks for holding them for us, but we'll take them from here."_

Faster than Shimakaze on a sugar high, Merry's expression shifted from pissed off to confused to jubilant and then back to angry, if a slightly over-exaggerated version of the emotion. "You'll never take me alive, you kelp slurping turtle fucking sons of sea wenches!"

"What in the hell…?" Nagato breathed. "Who are—?"

" _They're never gonna buy this…"_ a female voice grumbled.

" _Shut up! I'm still transmitting!"_

" _Oops…"_

" _ **HAHAHAHA!"**_

Merry's eye twitched as she tried to maintain a neutral expression, snapping a glare at Kongo as the latter stepped forward. "I don't know who you are!" she called up. "But you shouldn't have picked the US Marines of all people to impersonate." She smirked. "Because really, I don't know what that thing is, but it doesn't look like an amphibious assault ship to me."

" _Ah, w-w-well you see!"_ a panicked nasally voice hastily piped up. " _T-That's because this is a super secret model of ship known as the—!"_

" _Give it up, Usopp, our cover's already blown. Hell if I know how, but these aren't_ our _Marines we're dealing with. There's only one thing for it now. ALRIGHT, EVERYONE, PLAN B!"_

"WOOHOO, I LOVE PLAN B!"

Kongo frowned in confusion as a trio of blurs shot off the ship. "What the—!?"

"Gum-Gum Rifle!"

"Strong Right!"

"Cherry Blossom Blast!"

Kongo stood tall for a second before slowly tilting backwards, impact and blast marks decorating her front. Her assailants lowered themselves down from their attack stances, and were then joined by several more, hopping down from the ship.

There was a large man in a Hawaiian shirt, speedo, and sunglasses, looking like nothing more than an unholy fusion of Popeye and Ace Ventura.

There was a dark-haired woman in designer clothes, utterly normal and yet quietly terrifying.

There was a man-deer with a blue nose, red hat, and bulked-up arms.

There was a teenager in a button-down shirt and shorts, with blue hair in a tight ponytail riding on a large, saddled duck. One hand spun a chain with a crescent-shaped blade on the end of it while the other held an identical blade and chain.

There was an older woman, her hair done up in a bun with small _wings_ sticking out of her back. A large bazooka was held in her right hand, and another slung across her back. A white fox was perched on her shoulder as well.

There was a curly-haired young man, wearing overalls, a bandana, and goggles, and he had the most ridiculously long nose. He also held a _massive_ slingshot-staff combo in his hands.

There was an orange-haired young woman in a tank top and miniskirt, brandishing a staff with spherical attachments along its length. She was surrounded by what appeared to be a white cloud streaming from the butt of her staff that was waving and twisting around her as though it had a mind of its own.

There was what appeared to be a relatively normal young man in a hooded jacket and jeans, the hood drawn up over a ball cap and headphones around his neck, except in his right hand was a large sword, in his left an equally large bazooka, and perched on his shoulder was a snail with a freaking _phone_ built into its shell.

There was a blonde man in a black suit, a cigarette dangling carelessly from his mouth.

There was a green-haired man in t-shirt, pants and hakama, two katanas hanging from his side.

Surrounding them was a quintet of what for all the world looked like small shelled dugongs, one with a pair of nunchucks, one with a pair of katana, one with a pair of sai, one with a bo staff, and one with a rope-dart.

And at the lead of them all was a black-haired young man in a straw hat, red vest, and jean shorts, who practically _radiated_ power and charisma.

Of course, this was Tenryuu, Nagato, and Yamato. They weren't going to just back down. Nagato pointed her 16" guns at the interlopers—

" _VENGEANCE!"_

Only for Merry to leap at her and latch onto her face like a facehugger, tearing at her face with all the viciousness of a rabid wolverine.

Which left Tenryuu and Yamato to face the entire Straw Hat Pirates.

"SOUND THE ALARM, INTRUDERS IN THE BASE!"

"GET THEM!"

"CHARGE!"

Well, them and the combined forces of Desdivs 29 and 30, for what they were worth.

The Straw Hats observed the approaching mob for a moment before the one with the snail looked at the orange-haired one. "You want to, or should I?"

The orange-haired woman tilted her head to the side in thought, the cloud following the motion before she shrugged and started twirling her staff, apparently causing the cloud to darken and crackle menacingly. "Just keep them in place for a second, alright?"

The snail-carrier nodded in understanding before hauling back the arm holding his sword. "You heard her, Funkfreed. Go…" He then snapped his arm forwards and _flung_ the sword at the oncoming mob of destroyers. "GET THEM!"

To the shock of all observing, the sword morphed in midair, shifting into an _elephant_ of all things that stampeded towards the destroyers, breaking their loose formation with a swing of its tusks and trunk.

Before the destroyers could successfully rally, the orange-haired woman swung her staff out, snapping the dark cloud out into a scorpion-tail esque form that was crackling with lightning. "Sorry about this, but we're not leaving without Merry! Now, _LIGHTNING STRIKE TEMPO!"_ And with that, the cloud snapped forwards, lashing out a vicious chain of lightning that washed over the mob of destroyers _just_ as the elephant snapped back into its sword form.

The orange-haired woman sniffed confidently. "And that's that! Boss, Usopp, you keep an eye out for any others!"

"Aye aye, ma'am!"

"I still say we grab Merry and run like heck. Then again, who am I to argue with someone who periodically fries people with lightning?"

" _What was that!?"_

"N-Nothing, Nami!"

"Move your ass, longnose, move!"

"Oh, no, you don't!" Yamato snarled as she swung a 6.1" turret around at the sniper and dugong. She mentally pulled the trigger—

BA- _BLAM!_

And jerked in shock as half her rigging practically _imploded_ on account of— _a plugged barrel!?_

"Call me an old softie," the large blue-haired gorilla man grinned as he held her turret barrel in place with his massive hand. "But I'd _really_ rather you didn't blow my friends to pieces. It's _SUPER_ rude, don't you know?"

"Which is why I'm _really_ sorry about this!"

Yamato swung her head around at the voice, and promptly paled in horror at the sight of the _massive_ cannon-barrel being stuck in her face by the angel-winged woman. "Again, _really_ sorry," she sighed apologetically, a sentiment opposed by her pulling the trigger and unleashing a wave of _pain_ straight in her face. The battleship staggered back, but to the surprise of both quickly righted herself with only some minor burns and unleashed a tide of 25mm shells at them.

"YEOW!" the large man yelped as he shielded the cannon-wielder with his body. "What the hell is this chick made of!?"

"Hopefully this! Excuse me!"

Yamato swung her turrets around as a large finger tapped her on the shoulder—

CRUNCH!

And stiffened in shock as another gorilla-man, this one actually covered in fur and sporting a _blue nose_ of all things, shoved a liquid-filled vial down her throat.

The battleship stood still for a moment as the liquid unwillingly trickled down her throat, slowly integrating itself with her body's chemistry. Finally, however…

" _HURK!"_ Yamato doubled over miserably as a wave of nausea coursed through her. Acting fast, the shipgirl dashed to the side of the pier and unloaded her stomach's contents into the harbor, heaving as heavily as she could until there was nothing left.

"Oh, you— _ugh!—_ sons of bitches…" she groaned, equal parts rage and sickness coloring her voice. "I swear to _God,_ I am going to—!"

She cut herself off as she felt something heavy and slightly slimy plop down on top of her head. Turning her eyes upwards, she blinked in confusion as she took in the grinning _something_ perched on her skull. "The hell—?"

"Soundbite? Gastro-Blast."

"RA-RA- _SHISHBOOM-_ **BAH!"**

Yamato had a second to wonder how the hell the snail was talking before her world became pure _agony._ Everything rang and shook for the battleship, her eyes crossing and her body shaking before she gave up the fight and fell unconscious.

The snail-wielder smirked confidently as he plopped the afore-named Soundbite down on his shoulder. "Well, that was ea…sy?" He trailed off as he noted Imuya and Goya staring at him in horror from the water.

The pirate was silent for a moment before he and his snail slowly donned vicious grins. " _Heeeeeey,"_ the two chorused menacingly.

The submarines instantly dove under the water with dual shrieks of terror. They remembered what had happened to Kitakami and Iku, after all.

"Ohoh, you can run, but you sure as hell can't hide!" the pirate crowed as he swung up the cannon he was bearing. "OK, Lassoo, Cani-Cannon!" The second the pirate spoke, the cannon started blasting out a barrage of baseballs, littering the water with them.

Ten seconds later, Yokosuka Harbor _erupted_ into a pillar of liquid. Amidst the resultant rain, the two submarines slammed into the pier, flopping and flailing around in a blind panic for a second before finally falling still, foam bubbling out of their mouths.

" **NOW** _ **that**_ WAS EASY!" Soundbite cackled.

Finally, all that were left were Tenryuu and the swordsman squaring off against one another. The light cruiser and the pirate stared at each other, probing each other's defenses as they gripped their sheathed swords. Finally…

"Oni—!" the swordsman started, dashing forwards and curving his arms back as he unsheathed his blades, signalling Tenryuu what was coming. She dashed forward, her sword held out in a thrust straight for the swordsman's forehead, which halted the attack as he hit the brakes to avoid getting skewered. The two broke off into ready stances, reading each other with professional ease.

"Hey," the swordsman grunted. "What's your name?"

"Tenryuu," the light cruiser bit out.

"I'll remember it," the swordsman replied. "My name is Roronoa Zoro." And with that, he sheathed his swords and leaned forward.

"Two-Sword Style!"

Tenryuu tensed, preparing to meet the attack.

"Castle Gate!" Zoro cried out, dashing forward. Tenryuu's eyes widened and she brought up her sword to block. To her dismay, the attack cut _through_ her sword like it was made of butter instead of armor-grade steel, in two places at once, at that. Naturally, the swords continued and carved into her chest, carving two gaping wounds into her body. She fell forward onto her knees, blood—or perhaps oil—streaming from the massive gashes. She felt, rather than saw, Zoro step up behind her, and she hauled herself to her feet, gritting her teeth and presenting her front.

Zoro blinked, then grinned. "A worthy opponent, indeed." And with that, he drove his sword into her gut. That was the final straw, and Tenryuu collapsed, catching sight of Nagato keeling over under Merry's facehugger impression before dogpiled by the rest of the crew.

' _Heh,'_ she thought. ' _At least I'm not the only one. And at least… she's in good hands.'_

~o~

"Guys, you came! I've never been so happy to see you!" Merry sobbed comically, throwing herself into Cross's open arms.

"Good to see you again, Merry!" he replied as he caught her and threw her up into the air. "We're so glad you're safe, we were so worried! Did you behave while we were gone?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh!" Merry nodded eagerly. "I raised hell, tried to escape at every opportunity, and when I was given the chance, I went straight for the eyes!"

Cross gasped in awe as he caught her and held her above his head. "That's _very_ good, Merry! I-I'm so proud!"

"Yes, yes, so am I!" Vivi wheezed as she fought against Nagato's inhuman strength, yanking her Lion Cutter taut against the battleship's throat, to no effect. "Now, will one of you guys _help me already!?_ She won't give up!"

"Me…rry…" Nagato wheezed out as she reached towards the caravel.

"What da hell is dis woman's malfunction!?" Carue squawked as he tried and failed to use his mass to pin the shipgirl down.

Merry rolled her eyes with an exasperated huff before twisting her way out of Cross's grip. "Alright, alright, I can handle her. Give her a clear view of me."

Once Merry was certain the battleship was looking straight at her, she widened her eyes to their fullest extent and made them as watery as possible before sticking out her lip and quivering it, hence placing her expression at maximum cuteness. "I _wuv_ you, Mama Nagatoh!"

Nagato stared at Merry in awe for one second… two… three…

SPLURT!

"GAH!"

"Oh, holy shit."

Before keeling over on account of _massive_ jets of blood spurting out of her nose, a euphoric grin painted on her face.

"I… have no words," Cross stated succinctly.

"Should we still let her _live?"_ Nami asked uncomfortably.

"Nah, she's harmless," Merry said dismissively, waving her off without care. "I think that was more the cuteness factor than anything nefarious. Think of her like a female Sanji."

"Ooooohhhh…" the Straw Hats chorused in understanding, before Sanji did a double-take.

"Hey, I'm not _that_ bad!" the cook protested.

"Not yet, you aren't," Cross shot back with a grim chuckle.

Grinning, Merry turned around and looked over Kongo, with her cratered front; Yamato, scorched and bleeding from her ears; Nagato, twitching in a pool of her own blood, an expression of bliss on her face; and Tenryuu, bleeding out on the ground. Not to mention the pile of fried destroyer and the insensate forms of Goya and Imuya.

"Geez, you guys could have gone a little easier on them…" she grumbled. "They were nice to me… for the most part, as much as Marines _can_ be nice. Except for Nagato, she was cray-cray, and not in a fun way, either."

"Sorry about that, Merry," Cross said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "We didn't know the situation, so we decided not to hold back."

" **And you're WORKING OUT** _frustrations, too,"_ Soundbite added with a snicker.

"We were chased down by a killer _pigeon!_ My bounty is well and good, but I still want _some_ pride, damn it!" Cross raged furiously.

"It's fine, they're tough. And they've got all sorts of cool healing techniques for people like me," Merry said as she clambered onto Franky's shoulders. "Did you know they heal by sitting in hot baths? No offense, Franky, but a _lot_ of old aches left me after one go!"

"That's super, sis!" Franky whooped as he shot her a thumbs-up.

"Oh, really?" Chopper asked, eyeing her curiously. " _You'll have to tell me all about it. Medical texts don't exactly cover cases like yours,_ _ **but with this knowledge I could create an entire new branch of medicine! Think of the possibilities! THE THRILL OF THE SEARCH! LET US BEGIN THE—!"**_

CLONK!

"Thank you, Conis. Also, _ow!"_

"Sorry, Chopper!"

Merry giggled as her crew fell back into old habits. However, an oppressive, droning buzz caught her attention, and she glanced around, looking for the source.

"Soundbite?" she began, injecting a note of authority into her voice. "Did you leave the Gastro-Phony on again?"

" **This isn't** _ **me!**_ " the snail protested.

"Uh, guys?" Usopp cut in, shaking and staring towards the distant western horizon. "What the hell is that?!"

The crew turned their gazes to where Usopp was pointing. A massive, amorphous black cloud was advancing towards them at alarming speed.

"… Okay, got me, I never saw anything like _this_ while I was here," Merry said, a hint of worry in her voice.

Cross held his hand out to Nami, who handed him her spyglass. He snapped it open and took one look at the horizon before slowly lowering the device with a pained grimace. "Hey, guys? I think I know where we are."

"Oh, yeah? Where?" Luffy asked eagerly.

Cross allowed a horrified shudder to course through him. "Home. _My_ home. Now, unless I'm misreading those roundels and those _aren't_ Japanese fighter planes soaring towards us, I'd suggest we get the hell out of Dodge before we recreate a little historical event known as _PEARL FREAKING HARBOR!"_

" **KAMIKAZE AT 12 O' CLOCK!"** Soundbite shrieked as he snapped back into his shell.

Nami and Zoro glanced at each other before the second mate came to a decision. "Right, I don't know what the significance of Pearl Harbor is, but I'm gonna take your panicked reaction at face value and say that it's bad." She glanced around at the stunned forms of the crew. " _That means get on the ship and get ready to leave, you morons!"_

"Yes, ma'am!" most of the crew barked, except for Luffy and Sanji.

"Aw, come on, Nami, Cross!" Luffy whined. "I wanna fight them! I've never fought flying enemies before! And those CP bastards don't count, so don't even say it!"

"And I can't leave before I found out if there are any more ladies here!" Sanji added. "If they're half as pretty as the ones you guys _mauled beyond recognition_ , then—!"

"Right, screw this," Cross spat as he snapped his headphones on and jabbed a finger at Luffy. "Soundbite, Gastro-Phony."

"Lightning Strike Tempo!" Nami snarled as she lashed out with her Clima-Tact.

Both Sanji and Luffy promptly collapsed, Luffy green from trying to hold in his half-digested third lunch and Sanji twitching and spasming as smoke curled off him. With Zoro carrying them, the Straw Hats got the Thousand Sunny under way in record time.

As they made their way out of Tokyo Bay and past the insensate forms of the picket submarines, stealing fearful glances back at the swarm of Vals, Kates, and Zeroes all the while, Merry couldn't help herself. She started giggling again, bursting into full-on laughter as they got to open ocean. She was still laughing an hour later when an Abyssal Re-class battleship popped out of the water in front of the Sunny.

"AH! MONSTER!" Usopp screeched.

"A pretty monster!" Sanji swooned.

"So, Merry, is this a hostile monster, or…?" Cross trailed off as the battleship pointed her tail and the guns mounted within at the Sunny. "Welp, that answers that."

The Re-class battleship was afforded only a moment of confusion as the humans _didn't_ try to run before the crew, sans Sanji, hauled themselves up onto the Sunny's railing, weapons and fists at ready and predatory gleams in their eyes.

The Abyssal and her tail had just enough time to shoot terrified glances at each other before a rubber fist grabbed the shipgirl's throat and yanked them aboard.

 **-o-**

"Alright, what's the damage?" Goto groaned.

"We have three battleships, one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, seven submarines, and sixteen destroyers out of commission for at least a week," Ooyodo reported. "We have another seventeen shipgirls with lesser damage who should be good to go tomorrow. As for the base…" The secretary ship flipped to another sheet of paper. "The portside warehouse district has been levelled, the cafeteria is out of commission and will be for at least three days, and the destroyer dorms will need to be rebuilt." She sighed. "Again."

"Okay…" Goto sighed. "I assume everyone's been told _not_ to bring in strange shipgirls flying Jolly Rogers?"

"Yes."

"And the Abyssal at my window?"

Ooyodo glanced at the disheveled Re-class battleship clinging to the glass like a lamprey, tears streaming down from the puppy-dog eyes shining into the office and her tail holding up a sign that read " _Will fight for food and a good home."_

"I took the liberty of contacting Re-chan down in the Marquesas," Ooyodo replied. "She'll take her in."

Goto smirked viciously as he turned around to face his desk. "Good. The Americans will be happy about needing one less battleship on the Australian Route."

THUMP!

Ooyodo took a look behind him before grimacing miserably. "Ah… I'm afraid it won't be that easy, sir."

Goto ground out a weary sigh before slowly wheeling back around.

Plastered on the glass next to the Re-class was Hoppo-chan, who _also_ had tears streaming down her cheeks and was holding up a sign of her own, which read " _Will do anything for big sister."_

THUMP!

And just like that Nagato was there as well, joining the two in their tear-filled pleading. Though the bandages wrapped around her body kinda ruined the image a bit.

Goto's eye twitched furiously for a moment before he slowly turned back to his desk. "Is there… anything else?"

FLASH!

It was a testament to the base's state of affairs that Goto barely even reacted to a piece of paper suddenly appearing on his desk from out of nowhere.

 _Wait until she comes back for a playdate when she's all grown up! —B.R.O.B._

Goto's eye twitched insanely for a moment as he slowly turned to look at Ooyodo with a crazed look before falling down on one knee before her and proffering a golden ring. "Will you marry me?"

The cruiser gave the Admiral a flat stare. "Sir, if you're going to commit suicide, I kindly request you _not_ make it a double."

Goto opened his mouth to speak, but never got the words out as he was suddenly yanked upwards. A stunned Ooyodo traced his trajectory up to the vent in the ceiling, just in time to see Kongo poke her head out.

"Take the rest of the day off, Ooyodo!" she ordered, grinning. "I'll take care of Admiral Goto, don't worry." And with that, she ducked back into the vent and swung the grating back into place.

For a solid five minutes, the secretary ship just stood there in open-mouthed amazement. "The vent's vertical, how did she—" she began before shaking her head. "Ah, fuck it, it's Kongo. I'm gonna go see if Junyo's up to hitting the nearest bar. You all want in?"

Nagato and her… 'family' nodded in agreement.

"Alright, come on, let's go."

And so the light cruiser, the battleship and the Abyssals all wandered off to find a carrier and get hammered.

Just another average day in Yokosuka.


	345. Rule 1184

**Rule 1184. Iku, please don't try your luck on Olympic. Those legs aren't just for show.  
**  
"Oh, I see Japan!" Lusitania called. "Look, look!"

"I see it too," Olympic replied from just a few feet behind. "Hopefully Titanic and Langley can show us around."

After a whirlwind romance that had culminated in a two-week trip to the Swiss Alps - a novel experience for two ships that had never been far from the sea - Olympic had been contacted by Titanic, both to congratulate him and also to extend an invitation to visit Yokosuka, where the liner was helping raise morale. Olympic had quickly accepted, both to see his younger brother again and also to talk to Langley. After all, he needed to make sure she hadn't forgotten her promise to never break his little brother's heart.

"Hotcha!"

But first, to deal with the busty submarine that had latched onto his chest. And that had just torn his shirt open.

"Oh my God you could grind meat on those things..." Iku moaned as she stared, drooling, at Olympic's abs.

"And they're _mine!"_ Lusitania declared as she pried the soft, squishy barnacle off of her boyfriend.

Well, on the one hand, that submarine was _very_ easy on the eyes. On the other hand, Lusitania's newfound assertiveness was _much_ hotter. In the end, it was an easy choice. As the submarine dove for Lusitania, who flinched back despite her newfound bravery, Olympic surged forward, mentally cursing his decision to leave his bronze axe at home. Still, he did have a backup plan.

Over 2000 tons of submarine slammed face-first into the treaded rubber sole of a heavy leather boot backed up by 46,000 tons of pissed-off ocean liner, and was slammed into the water.

Iku blinked up at Olympic, her mouth drawn into a confused half-smile. "What?" she asked, the picture of innocence.

"I don't like submarines," Olympic growled, his voice dropping an octave. "And I don't like molesters. And guess what, you're both at once!"

Iku snorted under the boot. "What are you going to do, kick me to death?"

The grin that spread across Olympic's face could not be described as a smile. It had too many teeth. "I shall take that as a challenge."

~o~

Titanic grinned in amusement, Langley giggling beside him, as Lusitania helped Olympic onto the pier of Yokosuka harbor. From the unconscious I-boat slung over his shoulder and the way he was hopping on one foot, the liner had a good idea of what had happened.

"I see you've met our resident dirty old man," Titanic said.

"Charmed," Lusitania and Olympic growled in unison. "Why didn't she bother you while you were alone?"

"Apparently, I was, and I quote, 'A pure cinnamon roll too good for this world'." The liner nodded at the blank looks sent his way. "I don't understand it, either, but I very soon learned too appreciate my, ah... cinnamon roll-ness."

"I can see why..." Olympic muttered. "So, what should we do with this..."

"Lewdmarine," Langley suggested.

"Right. What do we do with her?"

"The usual thing you do with fish you don't want," Titanic declared, stepping forward and grabbing Iku by the back of her swimsuit. "You throw them back in." And with that, he tossed the submarine back into the water. Iku promptly sank down, and not even bubbles came up.

"Um... is she going to be alright?" Lusitania said as Titanic and Olympic wandered off, chatting animatedly.

"Don't worry, we confirmed recently that submarines are fully capable of breathing underwater even without their rigging," Langley assured her. "She'll be fine. Now come on, there's this shabu restaurant you just _have_ to try, you and Olympic both."


	346. Rule 1190

**Rule 1190. The Kumas are** ** _not_** **allowed to 'adopt' a live grizzly bear as their mascot and/or have it live on base as their 'pet'. Nor can they ride one.  
**  
"Alright, girls!" Kuma announced to the gathered members of the JMSDF Bear Ship Club. Instead of a chair, she was sitting on top of a large grizzly bear happily munching on berries and fresh salmon. "Show me your bears!"

"I-I, uh, went to Australia and picked up a koala," Abukuma said, holding up the rather stunned-looking creature, which was happily munching on eucalyptus leaves.

"You do know that's not a bear, right?" Mikuma pointed out. "Anyway, I went over to the States and picked up a black bear that the forest guys wanted out. He doesn't like rice, but he loves karaage chicken."

The black bear in question let out a loud wuff before before going back to its food.

"I elected to go for the most magnificent of bears," Kumano boasted. "And so, I went and had a polar bear cap-!"

The heavy cruiser was cut off by said polar bear chomping down on her head, sharp teeth grinding against her armor.

"He's still being trained," the heavy cruiser stated through gritted teeth as she pried the bear's jaws open.

"And I have a panda bear," Chikuma finished off, indicating the animal in question, nibbling on bamboo.

"... Aren't those endangered?" Kuma said.

"That just makes them even more valuable!" Kumano announced. "And besides, it is _adorable!"  
_  
"Well, yeah, but the point is, the Chinese government is kinda sensitive about losing them," Mikuma said. "So we were just worried that-"

All of a sudden, with a wrenching crash, a large chunk of the ceiling was torn away, revealing an Eastern dragon poking its head into the room.

" **RETURN THE PANDA, AND NO ONE GETS HURT,"** the dragon announced, before doing a mild double-take at the sight of the other bears in the room. **"ACTUALLY, HAND OVER THE OTHER BEARS, TOO."  
**  
"Oh yeah?" Kuma shot back. "And what are you gonna do about it if we say no?"

The dragon frowned, and a bolt of lightning roared out of a cloudless sky to hit Kuma, her skeleton flashing as electricity coursed through her and knocked her out.

 **"ANYONE ELSE?"  
**  
Wordlessly, the rest of the assembled kumas stood aside, allowing the dragon to scoop up all the bears.

 **"MUCH OBLIGED,"** the dragon stated, before flying off.

They were silent a moment more, before Kumano threw up her hands.

"Fuck this, fuck politeness, and fuck that fucking dragon," she spat. "I'm going to go get blind fucking drunk. Who's fucking with me?"

Three hands immediately shot up.

"Outstanding."

~o~

Kumano groaned as every destroyer in Japan did marching band practice in her skull, Kamikaze with a sousaphone blaring in her ear. Slowly, she opened her eyes, beholding a dimly lit room with Mikuma and Chikuma sprawled out on large pillows. Oh, and she was holding something large, soft, and fuzzy.

Slowly, Kumano held out the item she was hugging, and beheld a very large stuffed bear, wearing a blue coat, a red hat, and spectacles. It was absolutely _adorable,_ and larger than her.

 _'This is fine,'_ she decided, grabbing onto the bear and squeezing.


	347. Rule 1191

**Rule 1191. After an incident involving the drinking game for** ** _Withnail and I_** **, all drinking games are subsequently prohibited.  
**  
Hiyo poked at the unconscious forms of Nachi, Junyou, and Chitose, all sprawled out on the floor with blue lips and foaming mouths. Vomit and bottles liberally covered the floor, with Chiyoda counting up the alcohol content and Myoko checking the computer to find out what the heck had prompted the latest bender.

"Six bottles of wine, a pint and a half of hard cider, two bottles of gin, three bottles of sherry, six bottles of whiskey, and a pint and a half of beer," the light carrier concluded. "I'd think that wouldn't be enough to knock these three out, but..." She eyed an entirely separate pile, stacked high with vodka. "That'd do it."

"I found out what they were doing, too," Myoko announced. "Take a look."

Hiyo and Chiyoda walked over to the computer, beholding two tabs, one with a completed video of _Withnail and I_ and the other a drinking game.

"Why am I not surprised?" Hiyo muttered, looking over the rules. Almost immediately, she blanched white and glanced at the first big pile Chiyoda had inventoried. "Oh, shit, did they _start_ with that?"

Wordlessly, Ashigara held up a post-it note that said that exact thing.

"Right," Hiyo muttered, before grabbing the mouse. "So, wanna see the movie that sent our sisters into comas?"

"Sure."/"Hell yes!"

And with that, they settled down to do just that.

~o~

"Uh, T-Tenryuu?"

The light cruiser put down her manga and flashed Inazuma a friendly smile. "Yeah? What's up?"

"I-I, uh, I wanna talk to you about love, nanodesu," the destroyer said.

"NANODESU!"

Tenryuu's eyes widened fractionally. "Love, huh?"

"Y-Yeah, nanodesu."

"NANODESU!"

"W-What _is_ it, nanodesu?"

"NANODESU!"

"Well, first of all, love isn't _attraction_. That's a very important distinction to make," Tenryuu stated sagely. "They're both romantic feelings you get about someone stronger than liking them, but they're not the same thing, and thinking they're the same is where vampire romance novels come from."

"Ohhhh..." Inazuma breathed in realization. "Oh, it's like how the hero is _attracted_ to the sexy villainess but is still in love with his actual girlfriend, nanodesu!"

"NANODESU!"

"Exactly!" Tenryuu said, before pausing. "Wait, what the hell have you been reading lately?"

The destroyer's sudden luminescent blush and fingers poking together were answer enough.

"Right... moving on!" Tenryuu desperately said. "Is that enough? Because seriously, I don't think I'm gonna succeed where thousands of much smarter guys than me have failed."

"Uh, I-I think that's a good explanation for now, nanodesu!"

"NANODESU!"

"By the way, what's with the guys taking shots every time you say 'nanodesu'?"

"NANODESU!"

"It's really annoying."

"I-I don't know!" Inazuma wailed, suddenly flustered. "T-They just started following me today, nanodesu!"

"NANODESU!"

"Right," Tenryuu growled, rolling up her sleeves. "Time to crack some heads."

"Go easy on Hibiki, nanodesu!" Inazuma called after her caretaker.

"NANO- OH SHIT!"

Much violence ensued.


	348. Rule 1197

**New** **Rule 1197: There is no reason to stage "raids" on other shipgirl dorms on your base.  
**  
"Okay," Nevada whispered to the other shipgirls in her little strike force. "You guys know the plan, right?"

The quartet of Americans were clumped up in one of the alleyways of Taranto, with only garbage and rats for company. A block away were the main shipgirl dorms, and they were the targets this night.

"First, we sneak into the Italian dorms," Dace said, done up in full ninja regalia.

"And then we loot everything nailed down!" Kidd continued.

"And then, let them know that we were there!" Trenton finished.

"Just remember to pillage before burning!" the destroyer admonished.

"I know, I know."

"Alright," Nevada nodded. "Let's do this!"

The three Americans surged around the corner - and came face-to-face with several other groups of shipgirls. From one corner of the intersection was Suffren and Duquesne, dressed up in 18th-century naval uniforms, complete with powdered wigs. From another corner came Tirpitz and Prinz Eugen, full Viking regalia on their rigging. And finally, from the final corner-

"Hey, that's my rum!" Kidd exclaimed, pointing a finger at Pola, who for her part simply pointed at herself in confused, inebriated innocence despite the bag of bottles slung over her back.

"Well, this is awkward," Suffren muttered.

"What are you two even doing here?" Duquesne demanded, jabbing a finger in the Germans' direction. "You're a North Sea navy!"

"Uh, wanderlust?"

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

All eyes turned upwards onto the rooftops, where Scylla and Charybdis were perched like their namesake mythological monsters.

"Fools!" Charybdis declared. "You've handed yourselves to us on a silver platter!"

"Oh yeah?" Nevada declared with all the bravado in the world. "You and what army?"

Scylla grew a malicious smirk at that. "That's your cue, Ghurka!"

The destroyer in question quickly popped up next to the two cruisers, wielding a pair of Hedgehogs. Before anyone could respond, the mortar bombs were launched and landed among the gathered shipgirls, bursting into a massive cloud of opaque gas. The three Brits watched for several minutes before the cloud cleared, revealing all but Pola lying unconscious on the ground, and that only because the Italian was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn," Ghurka swore. "Should we go after her?"

"Nah, she's just looking to get sloshed," Charybdis answered, before pulling out a pair of platforms, each loaded with two UP launchers. "Now, let's get moving. We've got a lot of ground to cover and a lot of shit to carry."

"Don't worry, we'll stuff it in my bomb magazines if we need to," Wasp stated from behind them.

"Alright, let's do this, then!" Scylla declared, raising her rockets.

"YEAH!" Wasp, Ghurka, and Charybdis agreed, raising their own rockets.


	349. Rule 1198

**Rule 1198: Fishing for friendly submarines with fake depth charges is not a good plan.  
**  
Lieutenant Kamata of the JMSDF glanced around the pier next to the submarine pens, and when she didn't see anyone she crouched down and zipped open the duffle bag she'd been carrying. Inside was a fishing pole with plenty of line and an empty, fairy-sized depth charge casing, egg-shaped and fitted with fins to mimic the American Mark IX. The mousy sailor quickly tied the line to the plastic depth charge and cast the line into the water before unfolding a beach chair and sitting down with her phone.

Time passed, at least an hour, before she got her first nibble, and then a bite. Lieutenant Kamata immediately grabbed the pole and began reeling in her catch. Helping her in this endeavor was the fact that her catch really _, really_ wanted that depth charge. Finally, with a triumphant yell, she yanked back and her catch broke the surface.

Goya and Lieutenant Kamata stared at each other for a second before the submarine grimaced, as if she wasn't hanging by her hands from a plastic depth charge. "Well, this is awkward."

Her glasses glinting, Lieutenant Kamata whipped out her knife and sliced through the line in one go, dropping Goya into the water. She then packed up her gear and left, heading back to her quarters.

The next morning dawned bright and early, and once again found Lieutenant Kamata on the pier, fishing pole in hand and depth charge ready to be attached. Joining the gear, though, was one of Yamato's old swimsuits, a jet-black one-piece halter number with _very_ high hip cutouts and practically no liner. From what she'd heard, it had taken quite some cajoling before Enterprise let her girlfriend dispose of it. Some duct tape sufficed to attach the swimsuit to the depth charge, and then the line was tied to one of the shoulder straps. Once again, the Japanese sailor cast out her line and sat down to wait.

This time, it was closer to two hours before she got a nibble. She immediately grabbed the pole, yanked it up - and was rewarded by a snapped line.

"Oh for..." she muttered before leaning over the water. "You stupid lewdmarine!"

She got no answer, and, grumbling, she went to her plan B: another swimsuit, this one a blue striped bikini that belonged to Enterprise. A new line was fitted, and the bait attached, and then she casted it out again. This time, the reaction was immediate, and she immediately hauled it in, struggling with the submarine below.

For a moment, they were even, and then Lieutenant Kamata activated her secret weapon - her hand flashed to her top and yanked it open, revealing a lime green bandeau top that struggled to contain her surprisingly large breasts. The struggles ceased, and the sailor only barely managed to avoid falling on her ass for lack of resistance. The catch breached the waves, revealing Iku clutching the swimsuit and leering openly at Lieutenant Kamata's breasts.

"Well, this is clearly an invitation to something," Iku decided. "And I like what I see. Oh, yes I do..."

Lieutenant Kamata, for her part, merely smirked and adjusted her glasses. "It's going to get quite a bit better," she retorted, before putting Iku down on the pier and giving a come-hither gesture while gathering her gear. "C'mon, let's head over to my quarters. This isn't a great venue for what I have planned."

Iku's jaw dropped, and then a wide, lecherous grin spread across her face. "By all means, lead the way."

~o~

Aoba crept along behind Enterprise and Yamato as they went on a date. This time, this time she was going to get them! The greatest scoop of her career! The truth behind Yamaprise's love life!

The two shipgirls disappeared around a corner, and Aoba burst from her cover, wheeling around the corner to see - nothing. A few outdoor restaurants, plenty of shops, a park just a block down the- wait. The heavy cruiser squinted, and then brought her optics into play, which revealed two female silhouettes half-hidden by a bush, in a very indecent position.

"Heheheheheh..." Aoba cackled, creeping forward again. "This is _perfect_."

Slowly, cackling under her breath, Aoba crouched forward, drawing more than a few pointed stares from onlookers, picking up speed as she went. By the time she reached the silhouettes, she was practically sprinting, and she sprang up over the shrub, raised her camera - and froze in stunned horror at the _cardboard cutouts_ lying where Enterprise and Yamato should've been.

Teeth grinding together, Aoba sucked in a breath and vented her rage to the heavens. "CURSE YOU, ENTERPRISE!"

Some distance away, Enterprise looked up from where she had been looking in the window of a boutique and smiled.

"It seems Aoba took the bait," she informed her girlfriend. "Good idea there."

"Thanks," Yamato replied, giggling. "See, I, Yamato, told you not every Japanese tactic was completely braindead."

"I never said that," Enterprise protested good-naturedly, rolling her eyes. "Your tactics were fine, it was at every level above it that you guys were complete fuckwits."

"Yes, well-"

"Oh, perfect! Strife! Trouble in Paradise! Oh, this is totally gonna sell!"

"GAH!" Enterprise and Yamato yelped as they jumped away from Aoba, who had just popped up between them. "How do... what the fuck?!"

"Is that a statement? Or would you-?"

*POW!*

Enterprise watched as Aoba sailed over the rooftops, whistling. "Nice, eight out of ten, easy. Almost as easy as how she found us." The carrier glanced at her girlfriend, a wide, toothy grin spreading across her face. "And I've got just the idea to prevent that."

~o~

Naka hummed one of the new songs her producer had given her. She liked it; upbeat, cheerful, and relentlessly catchy. She looked forward to singing it. In the meantime, though, she had a submarine to catch.

Over the past week, the light cruiser had gotten a steady stream of destroyer girls who claimed they had been stalked by some bizarrely androgynous submarine. Naka had been left completely befuddled until a chance conversation with Ning Hai revealed what Harder had done to him- her- theirself. And now, it was her job to impress on the submarine just how unacceptable their behavior was.

The floater bobbed, and Naka cut off her humming, focusing on the line. Unlike Lieutenant Kamata, she was a shipgirl, a light cruiser, fully capable of outmuscling a mere submarine. Plus, she had gotten Yuubari to commission a fishing pole and line strong enough to do the job. As a result, when she yanked, Harder came shooting out immediately and slammed onto the pier behind her. Naka quickly discarded the fishing rod, stepping up to the groaning submarine and taking his form in. She had to admit, he was quite easy on the eyes: lean and lithe, with plenty of tight muscle exposed by his swimsuit. Oh, and the look of fear that flashed across his face upon seeing her was even nicer.

"Hello, Harder- _kun_ ," she said sweetly, a smile on her face and a vein throbbing on her cheek. "We need to talk."

~o~

"Are you sure this will work?" Yamato panted as she and Enterprise broke apart.

"Pretty sure," Enterprise replied, just as breathless. "That stupid CA can't resist this."

Yamato nodded, and planted her lips back on Enterprise's.

After several more minutes of passionate snogging behind the bushes, they both heard a rustle of leaves and the click of a camera going off. Instantly, both sprang to their feet, Yamato grabbing Aoba and Enterprise grabbing the camera.

Much violence ensued.

"So," Enterprise said, poking at the twitching, bruised form of Aoba with a stick. "What do you want to do next?"

"Well, that toy store just got a new plush pug..."


	350. Rule 1200

**Rule 1200: After observing 1199, carriers must be awake and alert before commencing flight operations. Not dead asleep, with half their planes on BARCAP.  
**  
"And that's how we launch our aircraft while dead on our feet," Enterprise stated, the fairies gathered on her flight deck looking thoroughly smug.

"Wow," Zuikaku breathed before grabbing the American's hand and looking up at her with shining eyes. "Teach me, sensei!"

Enterprise chuckled and nodded. "Sure thing. That's what allies are for, right?"

~o~

"Ugh... Why did the Abyssals have to attack at three in the morning?" Teruzuki groaned as she unconsciously scanned the horizon with her radar.

"Less talking, more coffee," Hatsuzuki drawled as she took a deep gulp from her thermos.

Mamiya steamed up to the small group, the two destroyers leading another six of their sisters, several more destroyer girls, a mix of Yugumo and Kagero-class, heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma, light cruisers Sakawa and Isuzu, and all six of the famed First Air Fleet. Delectable smells were wafting from the box of food she was carrying.

"Good morning, everyone!" she announced, unnaturally chipper. "I've got Japanese and American breakfast items, I have tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, and-"

"Do-Do you have _fried potatoes_?" Teruzuki stammered, drooling.

A look of pity flashed over the supply ship's face, and then the smile was back and she was loading up food into one of the baskets she carried. Omelettes, some with rice, others with meats such as ham, bacon, and steak; eggs fried, scrambled, and poached; sausages, hams, and bacon galore; and, of course, excellent home-fried potatoes and miso soup packed full of extra tofu and nori.

"Here you go, dears," she said, pressing the basket into Teruzuki's hand.

"W-We couldn't possibly-"

"Teruzuki."

The destroyer in question glanced at her sister and flinched back at the intense glare directed her way.

"Shut up and thank Mamiya for the food so we can eat."

With the two duckies satisfied, Mamiya turned to the carriers just in time for a BARCAP to fly overhead, ready to intercept any incoming Abyssal smallcraft. Nodding, she fully turned her attention to the carriers - and promptly jerked in shock when she realized that all six were _dead asleep_. There were fairies standing on the shoulders of each carrier, looking smug and putting away whisper devices.

"Did they-"

"Yeah, they launched their aircraft like this," Tone replied, poking repeatedly at Kaga's thighs. "That's some damn good muscle memory, if I do say so myself."

"That's nothing," Isuzu retorted. "I was the one who had to get them out of bed. They got dressed and sortied still asleep."

Impressed whistles sounded out all around.

Unfortunately, the moment was lost as machine-gun fire sounded out in the distance.

"AA formation!" Isuzu barked, 5", 100mm, and the new Bofors and Oerlikon cannons turning skyward. Mamiya beat a hasty retreat, but she did give one last glance back at the carriers as the few leakers got through.

Even with their AA guns barking, they still didn't wake up.


	351. Rule 1204

**Rule 1204. Anger not the Ooyodo, for she is small and carries all the requisite forms to transfer you to Antarctica for extended tours.  
**  
Ooyodo stood in front of the door to Lieutenant Kamata's quarters. Not only had the officer generated several noise complaints over the last three days, but her research indicated that she was responsible for Iku missing a mission. Or, knowing Iku, perhaps it was the other way around. Regardless, it was a situation that she needed to handle _now_.

Reaching up, she pounded on the door several times, then settled back to wait. After several minutes with no answer, she repeated the action, and was rewarded by a hasty "Coming!".

Lieutenant Noriko Kamata opened the door, a shaky smile on her face. Ooyodo took in the sight of the junior officer: hair out of her usual ponytail and sprawled in a messy bird's nest; glasses nowhere to be seen; only a white, long-sleeve button-down covering her; her bowlegged stance; visible skin covered in dried sweat and other fluids; and complete and utter exhaustion in the bags under her eyes and the quivering of her muscles.

And then there was the smell.

"Ah, Ooyodo, how can I-"

"So, who initiated this?"

Lieutenant Kamata blinked, clearly not comprehending the question. "What?"

"It looks like you had a _very_ fun weekend," Ooyodo replied, her nose scrunched up in distaste. "Which is fine, the fraternization rules are looser with shipgirls, but it stops being fine when it interferes with your mutual duties. So I'll ask again." The expression of distaste shifted into an aggravated glare. "Who. Initiated. This?"

Before Lieutenant Kamata could reply, a sleepy and very naked Iku padded up to them.

"Norikoooo..." she whined, grabbing the officer's arm and tugging. "Come baaaaack..." She blinked, and then finally took in her girlfriend's flustered panic and Ooyodo's mounting ire. "Oh, hey, Ooyodo! 'Sup?"

"Iku," Ooyodo said in a voice that made the South Pole look like Death Valley in the summer.

"H-Honey, go back to bed," Noriko stammered, trying to push the submarine away. "I-I've got this."

Iku blinked, and then comprehension dawned across her face. "Oooooh, we're in trouble, aren't we. Don't worry, I got this."

"Wait-!"

Ignoring her girlfriend's protest, the submarine sidled up to Ooyodo and pressed close. "C'mon. Why don't you join us? Your job must be so stressful. We'll make it aaaaall~"

Hand chop met back of neck, and Iku slumped forward, unconscious. Ooyodo wordlessly heaved the submarine onto her shoulder and turned to Lieutenant Kamata, curled up on the floor in a fetal position.

"You're excused, Lieutenant Kamata," Ooyodo stated. "But if I have to come back here..."

The light cruiser let the threat hang, before adjusting the load on her shoulder and leaving.

~o~

Lieutenant Nanase Reina perked up as she spotted her best friend, Noriko Kamata, slumped over on one of the cafeteria tables, looking miserable. Oh, this looked juicy! Especially since Noriko had shared a certain plan with her the previous week.

"So," she said as she sat down with her own tray. "I take it it didn't go well?"

"N-No..." Noriko hiccuped, looking up with a face streaked with tears. "It went great! It went too well! Iku missed a mission, Ooyodo showed up, and now she's in Antarctica! Literally! There are penguin pictures on her Instagram!"

Nanase raised an eyebrow, and leaned over the table to get a better look. "Huh. Is that why you've got an icepack stuffed down your pants?"

Noriko winced, and shifted slightly. "Yeah. We _might_ have overdone it a bit." Then she sighed and let her head thunk to the table. "But now she's in Antarctica. Antarctica! Can Ooyodo even do that?"

"She's probably the second-most powerful person on base," Nanase replied. "Depends on where you rank Captain Yonehara. Either way, yes, she can."


	352. Rule 1207

**Rule 1207. Please stop trying to incite the admiral to give you a "dressing down." The term doesn't mean what you seem to think it does.  
**  
"Ugh... stupid Admiral," I-26, alias Nimu, muttered as she entered the submarine pens. "How was I supposed to know that Corregidor saw her sister get blown up by a submarine?! I was just trying to be friendly!"

Entering the pen, she found just Imuya playing something on that omnipresent cell phone of hers and a submarine she didn't recognize sitting on the couches.

"Hey, Imuya," she said without her customary cheer. "Who's the new girl?"

"Uh, hi, I'm I-1," the new submarine replied. "Call me Ichi."

Nimu immediately brightened up, and grabbed the other submarine's hand, pumping it up and down. "Hi! I'm I-26! Call me Nimu! Hey, Imuya, did you introduce yourself yet?"

"Of course I did," the other sub replied distractedly. "So, what was with the frowny-face?"

"Well-" Nimu began, before throwing a glare at Imuya. "You're not going to tweet this, okay? If you do, I'm leaving a depth charge in your bed."

"Alright, alright," Imuya replied, rolling her eyes. "Just get on with it."

Nimu glared for a second more, then sighed and hung her head. "I got a dressing-down from Admiral Goto after I went to greet those American jeep carriers."

"You did your usual 'sneak-up-and-grab-the-shoulder' greeting, didn't you," Imuya deadpanned.

"How was I supposed to know her sister got blown up by I-175 right in front of her?!" Nimu demanded.

As the subs descended into bickering, none of them noticed I-1 and the lecherous grin that spread over her face.

~o~

Admiral Goto glared at the submarine in front of him. He'd not summoned many submarines; none of the navies of the world besides the Russian and German ones had. When the Germans had over 1000 submarines and a willingness to lend them out, you didn't really need to summon many of your own.

That, and submarines were, ship for ship, the kookiest ship type. Case in point, the eagerly grinning sub girl in front of him.

"In the week since you've been summoned, you've kancho'd eight destroyers, taunted Taiho about her torpedo terror, sabotaged the Yuubaris' experiments, causing three separate explosions, and sexually harassed Harder," he summarized. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ichi grinned, and then tugged down one of the straps of her swimsuit. "I'm ready for the dressing-down, Admiral," she said huskily, giving a slow, lewd blink.

Silence descended upon the room, Goto and Ichi both utterly still. The moment was finally broken by Ooyodo opening the door.

"Admiral, I have the report from Captain Yonehara on-"

She cut herself off as she took in the scene, before pivoting on her heel and closing the door.

"Ichi," Goto said after a moment, his voice creaking with strain. "What do you think a 'dressing-down' is?"

The panicked comprehension that spread over the submarine's face was quite gratifying. "You mean it's not you stripping me down?"

"No," Admiral Goto said. "No, it's not."

Ichi whimpered.

"Oh, don't worry," Goto said, his smile promising anything but. "Now that you've tried this, I won't be the one doing the dressing-down."

A hand clamped down on Ichi's shoulder, prompting her to flinch and look over her shoulder at a toothy smile attached to a blank face with two red circles for eyes.

"She is."

 _"Heeeeeey."_


	353. Rule 1211

**Rule 1211. It shouldn't have to be said, but joining a cult is a BAD thing.  
**  
"So, what's this I heard about a cult?" Valiant asked as she and her sisters Warspite and Queen Elizabeth ate breakfast.

"Your usual malarkey about the sea, us, and the Abyssals," Warspite replied, spearing a sausage with her fork perhaps a bit more viciously than necessary. "Bloody Japs and that stupid religion of theirs. Anyway, the Egyptian authorities are finally busting it up, so don't worry about it."

"WHERE IS SHE?!"

All movement in the cafeteria paused as Ajax's wail echoed through the room. Four of the five Leander sisters were gathered together, and besides Ajax looking utterly shattered, there was Achilles practically tearing her hair out, Orion fingering the knife she kept strapped to her waist, and Leander...

"What in the world is she doing?" Queen Elizabeth wondered aloud as the light cruiser poked her head into one of the air-conditioning vents.

"I'm wondering where Neptune is," Valiant remarked.

The three battleships were silent for a second before they connected the dots.

"It's just a coincidence... right?" Queen Elizabeth said shakily and with more than a little desperation.

"Considering our lives, I don't think we can count on it," Warspite decided, surging to her feet. "Valiant, round up the Leander sisters and catch up with us. Liz, with me. Hopefully we can get there before the police do."

~o~

"Well, so much for finding her before the police do," Valiant groused.

Warspite didn't reply in favor of facepalming as Neptune tossed another police car down the streets, the bullets falling on her like so much rain.

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FOOLS! YOU DARE PIT SUCH PATHETIC WEAPONRY AGAINST A GODDESS OF THE SEA?!" Neptune cackled, before sweeping her hand out. "TASTE THE OCEAN'S WRATH!"

The cruiser's fire hoses, manned by hooded fairies, popped out, sending jets of seawater out at the cops, knocking them off their feet and sweeping them back.

"Okay, that's it," Warspite growled. "We need to-"

The battleship blinked as she registered the conspicuous absence of Queen Elizabeth and the cruisers that had accompanied them.

"FOOL!"

"Oh no."

Sure enough, there in the middle of the street was Queen Elizabeth in all her haughty queenliness.

"A GODDESS, YOU SAY?" the battleship declared. "PHAH! ALL I SEE IS A SPOILED CHILD WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR! YOU ARE NO GODDESS, AND I DEMAND YOU ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR TRUE QUEEN!"

"Yeah, Neptune!" Ajax desperately called out. "Please, come back to us!"

"They were about to sacrifice a damn virgin to you!" Achilles added. "That's kind of a bit much, dont'cha think?"

"OF COURSE THEY WERE GOING TO SACRIFICE A VIRGIN TO ME!" Neptune declared. "AND YOU! YOU DARE QUESTION MY DIVINITY?! TASTE MY WRATH!"

Neptune manifested her guns, pointed them at Queen Elizabeth... and then blinked as nothing happened.

"What the-"

"You seem to be missing some shells," Orion remarked from behind her, tossing a few silk powder charges in her hand.

Neptune gaped at her sister, her fairies wailing at the lack of ammunition. "How did you-"

"Hunter, remember?" the light cruiser smirked. "Gotta be sneaky. Oh, and by the way, you forgot one more thing."

*CLONK*

"Leander likes her blunt weapons," Orion finished, nodding at her eldest sister. "Good job."

"Well, with you distracting her, she could have missed a dozen elephants dancing the can-can with fireworks going off," Leander remarked, ignoring the long-suffering sighs of her sisters and Queen Elizabeth's confused look. "So. Now what?"

"Now..." Warspite glared as she stomped up to them. "We take this little jackass to the MPs and make it _their goddamn problem_ because I came to Alexandria to get _away_ from this sort of shit. And put that popcorn away!"

"Aww..." Valiant whined as she tossed the small bag behind her.

~o~

"What can I do for you?" Admiral Goto said.

"Admiral, you gotta do something about this new cult that's popped up," Kitakami growled.

"New cult?" Goto repeated, confused.

In lieu of answering, the light cruiser pointed out the window, and Goto looked out to see Ooi standing in the middle of a crowd of hooded figures. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Kitakami joined him in the window.

"There she is!" Ooi announced. "It is the Based Goddess of Maximum Over Crit! Pray to the Based Goddess of Maximum Over Crit!"

"Ooi-sama, will this really cure my torpedo troubles?" a voice recognizable as Mogami asked.

"Of course!" Ooi declared. "But only if you recite 'Thank you Based Kitakami' three times a day!"

"Well..." Goto said as the cultists fell into prayer. "I can see how that could get annoying."

"Y'think?" Kitakami groused. "Seriously, someone needs to break it up before they get really out of hand."

"Pan Paka Paaa~aaan!"

The cultists immediately shifted attention as Atago skipped past, the motion doing interesting things to her breasts.

"Worship the Breast Goddess!" they all cried out as they ran after the heavy cruiser.

Wordlessly, Goto and Kitakami closed the window, the two of them sitting down on opposite sides of the desk. Finally, after several seconds, Kitakami's face scrunched up and she fell into a bout of laughter.

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!THE BREAST GODDESS! KITAKAMI LOST HER FLOCK TO ATAGO'S FUEL TANKS!" she howled, practically falling out of her chair. Admiral Goto merely chuckled and shook his head. Slowly, Kitakami's peals of laughter died down, leaving her sprawled out in the chair, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, man I needed that."

"You seem to have a lot of stress in your life," Goto noted.

The torpedo cruiser pinned her Admiral with a flat glare. "Have you met my sisters? Between Ooi's obsessive crush on me, Tama and Kuma's animal ticks, and Kiso being a goddamn Chuunibyou, I'm seriously considering defecting to the Nagara class." She sighed, running her hands through her hair. "At least I don't need to deal with destroyers anymore if I don't want to. Seriously, I _cannot_ handle kids."

"And that's why you're a torpedo cruiser," Goto stated. "Now go, make sure you can live up to your new title."

Kitakami groaned and ran a hand down her face. "That's gonna stick with me for the rest of my life, isn't it."

"Uh-huh."


	354. Rule 1218

**Rule 1218. Swimming lessons are mandatory for all ship girls. I don't know how Honolulu was able to sortie while not knowing how to swim but that ends now.  
**  
Admiral Holloway hummed a disjointed tune as he worked through the day's paperwork. Setting aside one packet, he took another off the stack, and frowned as he looked at the date. Yet another report or memo or whatever arriving on his desk a few weeks late. Ah well, couldn't be that important. He was about to read on to find out what it was about when he heard a scream from outside.

"HONOLULU!"

"DAMMIT!" came the voice of South Dakota a moment later. "WHO LET HER INTO THE TESTING AREA?! THE SIGN CLEARLY SAYS, 'SHIPGIRLS THAT CAN SWIM ONLY'!"

Holloway found himself torn between the fact that South Dakota was running _another_ unauthorized experiment and the fact that, apparently, some of his shipgirls _couldn't swim_. The List caught his eyes, updated just yesterday, and he tore it off the wall, scanning the recent rules.

 **Rule 1214: Honolulu's floatie/inner tube/** ** _life preserver_** **is not to be taken, hidden, stolen, borrowed, or otherwise removed from her person.**

Rule 1212f. Why do people keep asking if me and Hawaii can surf? I can't even swim. - Honolulu

Blood boiling in his veins, he jabbed his buzzer, Wright bustling in seconds later. The carrier took one look at him and flinched, her whole body tense.

"You called, sir?"

"Why was I not informed that some of my shipgirls apparently _can't swim?_ " he ground out through gritted teeth.

"What?!" Wright yelped, her eyes wide.

Some of Holloway's rage drained away at that reaction. "Wait, you didn't know?"

"Admiral, I assure you, if I had known any shipgirl couldn't swim I would get them lessons myself," Wright calmly stated. "But you're right, I have to wonder why no one was informed."

The door to his office slammed open, admitting a thoroughly pissed-off South Dakota and Phoenix, the latter supporting an equally thoroughly waterlogged Honolulu.

"Dammit, Admiral, why haven't you done something about this?!" the battleship demanded.

"South Dakota," Admiral Holloway stated frostily. "You do not get to demand anything from me, especially when you're still running illegal-"

"Oh, don't you fucking give me that when I submitted a report on the swimming situation three _weeks_ ago!" South Dakota snapped. "This should've been addressed by now, but what do I see when I test out my depowering device? Another fucking shipgirl nearly drowning because she doesn't know how to fucking swim!"

Filing that tidbit about a depowering device away for later, Holloway glanced down again at the report he'd just been about to read, confirming that it was indeed about swimming lessons for the shipgirls. "You mean this report?" he said, holding up the packet.

South Dakota immediately snatched it out of his hands and began flipping through it, her face bypassing red and going straight to purple.

"And you just got this today," she ground out through gritted teeth. Admiral Holloway nodded. "Right. Who do we kill for this?"

Eyes fell on Wright, who immediately threw up her hands and began shaking her head. "It wasn't me! I first saw it this morning!"

South Dakota mulled that over for a moment before nodding. "I believe you," she said, drawing a sigh of relief from the secretary ship. "But still, who could've done this?"

"Leave that to the cutters," Holloway ordered. "In the meantime, I'm going to get swimming lessons set up, so you don't need to worry about that." He smirked as South Dakota let out a sigh of relief. "Don't leave yet. I'd still like to know about this 'depowering device' of yours."

"... Fuck."

~o~

Admiral Cunningham frowned as he looked over the email, and snorted derisively. Of course his shipgirls could swim! What a ridiculous question.

"Admiral!" Dragon shouted, carrying a waterlogged Danae on her back. "Danae can't swim!"

Never mind.

~o~

"Tread!" Marat shouted to the destroyers flailing in the icy water of the Gulf of Finland. "Tread, you useless hunks of scrap!"

~o~

Admiral Goto mulled over the email he'd just gotten. He promptly paged Aoba, who, he was happy to note, looked notably nervous when she poked her head into the room a few minutes later.

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble," the Admiral assured her. "I just need to know something on base, and I thought you'd be the best person to talk to."

The heavy cruiser visibly relaxed, and Goto pressed on. "Just confirm for me: all my shipgirls can swim, right?"

Aoba snorted, shaking her head. "Oh, man, that was a great story. Stupid Americans... anyway, yeah, aside from a few of the new summons, they can all swim. The armored cruisers are handling that, anyway, so don't worry."

Goto felt a grin spread over his face. "Finally. Something I can one-up Holloway on."


	355. Rule 1223

**Rule 1223: Anime marathons will be duly taped. Now get ready for the sortie.  
**  
"Alright, everyone, final checks!" Akagi announced as the organized chaos of the First Air Fleet preparing for sortie swarmed around her. "Everyone fueled up?"

Nods all around, though Chikuma was hastily stuffing a sandwich down her gullet. "And I've got extra, just in case!" Hayasui cheerfully announced, holding up one of her fuel drums.

"Planes ready to go?" she continued.

"I can't believe I have so many!" Soryu exclaimed, examining her loaded-up flight deck. "Folding wings and deck parks are awesome!"

Akagi took one last look around, finally figuring out what had been bothering her: namely, a pair of destroyer divisions, 11 and 12, without their leader, Isuzu trying to herd all four of their Desdivs and failing miserably.

"Where's Sendai?" she hollered.

"No, stop, you can't do this!"

Every head in the room turned to where Naka was carrying Sendai over her shoulder, looking thoroughly exasperated.

"You have a sortie to go on!" Naka shot back.

"But the Naruto marathon! I'm gonna miss it!" the light cruiser wailed, drawing a chorus of groans and facepalms from the crowd of shipgirls.

"Recording software is a thing, you know!" Naka snapped before dropping Sendai on her ass. "She's fueled up and ready to go, I made sure of that. Now go kick some ass!"

~o~

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-!"

"I'm so sorry, Naka!" Yura said apologetically, her head bowed in contrition. "I was going to properly remove the tape, but you know how I was watching the Shimakaze sisters?"

Naka winced. Yeah, that explained a lot. "Soyokaze?"

"Soyokaze." The other light cruiser held up a mangled, smoking videotape. "This is all that's left."

"-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-!"

"Well, nothing for it, I suppose," Naka sighed. "I'll bug one of my production crew about letting go of a spare DVR and an external hard drive. Hopefully that means this won't happen again."

"Right," Yura nodded, before shooting a glance at the still-wailing Sendai. "She does know that since it's Naruto, she can stream it just about anytime on the internet, right?"

"-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-!"

"My sister..." the fleet's idol sighed, her hand coming up to rub her forehead. "Is not the most technically-savvy shipgirl."

The mind - specifically, Yura's mind - boggled at the implications. "How many computers has she melted?" Yura breathed.

"Trust me, you do _not_ want to know."

"-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sendai finally finished, slumping to the ground. "My ramen ninja idol..."

Letting out a noise like a cat being used to drive nails, Naka threw up her hands and stalked out the door. "I'm done. Done! Yura, you handle this. I just- I can't even- gah!"

The light cruiser watched Naka go, and then glanced at Sendai, still sobbing on the floor. She then squatted down next to her and slowly stroked her back.

"You wanna go get ramen?" she offered. "I know a good shop a couple miles from here."

Sendai sniffed, then wiped away her tears. "S-Sure."


	356. Rule 1226

**Rule 1126. Shipgirls with normal human boyfriends are to remember that they are much more fragile than you are.  
**  
Louisiana grinned as she hung her autographed Brandin Cooks jersey in its glass case, joining the Drew Brees jersey already hanging there. Helped take her mind off the current moribund status of the Saints.

Her phone ringing further helped, and she quickly picked it up and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

 _"Ah... this is Louisiana, right?"  
_  
"Ah..." the battleship said frostily. "Ashigara."

 _"I apologized for kidnapping your boyfriend!"_ the heavy cruiser protested. _"I sent you apology chocolates and a card and a phone call and everything! Can't you let it go?"  
_  
Louisiana sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Sorry, sorry, I'm in a bit of a bad mood today," she lied. "What's up?"

 _"Um, well... h-have you and Truxtun d-done... it?"  
_  
"What are you-" Louisiana began before the nervous stuttering connected with the subject matter and prompted a blush to run across her face. "Ah, yes, we, uh, we have. I'm... guessing you need advice on something?"

 _"Y-Yes. I'm so much stronger than him, and that hasn't been a problem because of the positions we use, but I want to try being on top and-"  
_  
"You don't want to break his hips," Louisiana finished.

 _"Yes. Right."_

"Isn't that kooky battleship of yours dating your Admiral?" the battleship pointed out. "Why didn't you ask her?"

 _"Well..."_

~o~

"Oh, don't worry," Kongo said dismissively. "You and Captain Yonehara merely need to stoke the fires of your BURNING LOVE!, and you'll be fine! We've tried so many things, if hip-breaking was a problem, we'd have noticed." The battleship's usual easy smile widened and turned lecherous. "Though, if you need any tips on making it more pleasurable..."

Ashigara immediately turned tail and ran as quickly as was polite.

~o~

 _"Her advice was... distinctly unhelpful."  
_  
Though she didn't know Kongo, Louisiana had heard enough about the nuttiest battleship in the Japanese Navy to get a good idea. "Somehow, I'm not surprised," she sighed. "Honestly, I can't help you all that much. I can only tell you to be careful, and take it slow. Especially no sudden moves." She grimaced at the memory of hearing about one of Iowa's more... careless conquests. "As it turns out, you _can_ break a penis."

There was a long pause, and then Ashigara hung up.

"Rude," Louisiana remarked. "Though quite understandable." A smile spread over her face, and she walked over to the door out of her room, intent on finding her boyfriend. "Let's see if we can test a few more positions. For medical science."


	357. Rule 1229

**Rule 1229: Sendai must announce herself when traveling around the base. Sneaking up on Willie D could lead to another "Iowa Incident".  
**  
"Ah, Japanese food!" William D. Porter said as she breathed in the smells of the cafeteria. "I love Japanese food. And Mexican, and Chinese, and Italian-"

"Okay, okay, I get it, you like food," Yukikaze giggled. "Remind me to introduce you to the Duckies sometime."

"Literally _who?"  
_  
Yukikaze grimaced and slapped her forehead. "Dammit, Kongo, why'd you have to go and make that memetic..." the destroyer muttered. "I mean the Akizuki class. They all have that 'dzu' sound in their names, and they're all adorable, so... Duckies."

Willie D. nodded as the line shuffled forward. "Makes sense. So, why d'you want to-"

"HI!"

"GAH!" the American destroyer yelped, whirling around and summoning her rigging in a blind panic, all ten of her torpedo tubes firing from the hip. Naturally, none of them actually hit Sendai. Also naturally, upon hitting the ground, instead of doing nothing like proper torpedoes (or exploding, in the case of the Long Lance), all ten hit the ground at _just_ the right angle to start their motors and send them skittering along the ground.

All of this happened so fast, and was so improbable, that nobody had time to react before the torpedoes hit their victims.

"AGH, MY SPINE!" Kumano howled.

"AGH, MY SPINE!" Fuso wailed.

"HA!" Musashi barked as two of the torpedoes exploded against her to no apparent effect. "The Yamato-class' torpedo defenses are the best in the world!" To demonstrate, she took a step forward - and immediately collapsed into a heap on the ground with a loud snapping noise. "AGH, MY SPINE!"

Silence reigned in the cafeteria, broken only by the pained groaning of the three shipgirls hit. Then a growling began to emanate from Willie D.

"Sometimes, in the past, I wouldn't know what went wrong," she said, pinning Sendai with a piercing glare. "But this time, I know exactly what went wrong! You!"

"Sendai, we've talked about sneaking up on people like that," Yukikaze admonished. "You have to announce yourself _before_ entering a room."

"R-Right, right..." Sendai chuckled nervously.

"Great, the scolding is done, so can I please kill her now?" Willie D. complained.

"No, we're not killing her!" Yukikaze said incredulously.

"Thank God!"

"But she might wish she had."

The doors swung open, admitting Naka and Jintsuu, and both of them would have looked quite pleased were it not for their clenched jaw muscles.

"Oh, Sendai~!" Jintsuu sang. "I think it's time you spent a little more time with your sisters."

"C'mon, Jintsuu needs a sparring partner, and you never did finish Super Meat Boy!" Naka added, grabbing her eldest sister by the arm and beginning to drag her away.

Sendai glanced frantically about the room, hoping for some form of sympathy. "Please! Help me!" she shouted.

Nobody stepped forward.

With a wail of fear, Sendai lost her grip on the floor and was fully dragged out of the cafeteria. Silence reigned again for a moment before Akagi's stomach growled, setting everyone back into motion.


	358. Rule 1231

**Rule 1231. Breaking into the Admiral's house and baking a cake with his kid is not only banned, it is illegal and will get you in trouble with the MPs.**

Admiral Holloway sighed happily as he unlocked the front door of the house the Navy had given to him after being assigned to San Diego. It was a standard suburban house, but over the last few years he and his family had made the place seem a little more... lived-in. Despite his wife's best efforts, the crayon mural still hadn't been painted over, for instance.

Stepping inside, the Admiral smiled as he heard his wife, Jenny, and daughter, Mia, in the kitchen, metal clanging against metal. That sounded like one of their cake-baking sessions. Hopefully chocolate. He liked chocolate.

His hat and jacket quickly found themselves on the coatrack, his shoes kicked against the shoe closet, and he made his way over to the kitchen, poking his head in through the door. "I heard there was ca-"

The usual greeting died in his throat as Saratoga gave him a pleading look from where she was tied to a chair and gagged. There was also a _second_ cake sitting on the counter, covered in delicious-looking chocolate frosting.

"Welcome back, honey," Jenny said, not looking up from where she was pouring batter.

"Hi, Daddy!" Mia chirped, waving her spatula and sending bits of batter flying. Batter coated her lips. "How was work?"

"Fine..." he said slowly, not taking his eyes off of Saratoga. "Why is Saratoga tied up to one of our chairs?"

"Aunt Sara came over to bake a cake with me while Mommy was at the grocery store!" Mia answered cheerfully. "It was really fun and Mommy came home right after we put it in the oven and she got all mad 'n stuff and tied up Aunt Sara like in the movies but since the cake was already in the oven now we have two cakes!"

Holloway nodded dumbly at his daughter's run-on story. "I see. And how did she get in?"

"Oh, she broke in," Jenny remarked as she loaded the cake into the oven. "By the way, we need a new back door. Good thing it doesn't rain much here, and that she left the screen door in."

Sure enough, the back door was missing, leaving a splintered frame and a trio of forlorn, warped hinges behind.

"How'd I miss that?" Holloway muttered. "Okay, so, we'll need to call the cutters, and-"

"MPs!" Minnetonka announced as she threw the front door open.

"We'll take it from here, Admiral," Owasco assured him as they bustled into the kitchen and picked up Saratoga and the chair she was tied to. In less than a minute, they had bustled out, the carrier's muffled protests falling on deaf ears. It was at this point that Holloway's brain, already fried by the workday, threw up its hands and gave up the ghost. His smile returned, and he walked over to the counter and began measuring out powdered sugar for frosting.

"So, what flavor would you like?" he asked Mia.

"Chocolate!"


	359. Rule 1233

**Rule 1233. Showing off while in combat is not only dangerous it is potentially fatal. Stick to the plan and the team and you will win.**

West Virginia watched as a small force of Abyssal battleships steamed towards them, then glanced back at heavy cruisers Rochester, Toledo, and Albany, finding them understandably nervous at the sight. Especially since they had a convoy steaming along behind them and thus couldn't retreat.

"Alright, my seaplanes have a count!" Rochester - the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, rather than the armored cruiser stationed in the Philippines - reported. "Two Ta-class, one Ru-class! And... oh boy, that's a lot of destroyers."

 _"Don't worry about that, that's what we're for!"_ came the voice of Wilkes-Barre from the close escort. She was one of four Clevelands, backed up by destroyers, DEs, and a few escort carriers, sticking close to the convoy. _"But, uh, if you could handle those battleships, that'd be great."  
_  
A grin spread over WeeVee's face as she spotted the opportunity to show off to her juniors. "No problem," she replied. "Watch this!" And with that, with the enemy still 30,000 yards away, she fired. The shells flew from her guns, and bracketed the Ru on landing, sending the Abyssal battleships into wild evasions. The next salvo landed just behind them, and the third actually landed hits on one of the Tas. With the firing solution achieved, West Virginia set out to the task of slowly dismantling the three battleships.

"Uh, West Virginia, ma'am?" Albany said nervously after almost an hour. "There are only two battleships."

"Yup!" the battleship replied cheerfully. "This is the power of long-range shooting!"

"Ta-class, 285 degrees, 10,000 yards!" Rochester suddenly shouted, panicked.

"Wait, what?!" West Virginia yelped, whirling around to see that yes, a Ta-class had snuck up on them and was now 10,000 yards away. The good news was, she already had a salvo loaded and at 10,000 yards she couldn't miss.

The bad news was that the same applied to the Ta.

The Abyssal staggered as 16" AP bit, but West Virginia took five hits of her own. Still, as the heavy cruisers joined in, she felt confident they could handle things.

Then the remaining two battleships reminded her that they were still operational by slamming another four shells into her. The resulting firefight couldn't be called a battle: it was an execution, West Virginia's weaponry and citadel steadily battered down. For a while, it looked like she would fall - and then a dozen torpedo bombers flew in and plastered the Ta-class, another squadron heading for the Ru and Ta on the horizon.

"Yay..." West Virginia muttered, before collapsing onto Albany.

~o~

U-47 crept along just below the surface of the North Atlantic, tracking her prey. She had been leading a group of newly summoned Type VII U-boats when an RAF Nimrod had alerted them to a sizable surface force heading for one of the convoys.

"Alright, girls," she whispered. "Watch a master at work."

She got affirmative hand signals in return, and she returned to the task at hand. Slowly, she crept towards the fat, dumb, and happy heavy cruisers ahead of her on an intercept course. Soon, she was 10,000 yards away, in perfect position to pivot and empty her tubes. But the presence of the young subs behind her stayed her hand, at least temporarily, and she continued to creep forward on the intercept course. 8000 yards, 5000, 3000, 2000. Finally, she was 1000 yards away, close enough to truly impress her squadron mates with her stealth abilities. She raised her rigging, aiming her torpedo tubes...

And then a depth charge splashed into the water right in front of her face.

Her eyes widened, noting the I-class destroyer speeding away in her peripheral vision, and she hastily surfaced. The depth charge detonated, throwing her up in the air, and she was immediately sprayed by the AA guns of the heavy cruisers.

The only reason the submarine didn't bite the dust then and there was that her fellow submarines' torpedoes arrived as the heavy cruisers adjusted their aim, either blowing off their legs or sending them into wild, frantic evasions. U-47 smashed into the water, and the last thing she noticed as she passed out was one of the new U-boats looming over her, looking worried.

~o~

Kiso sent a sidelong glare at Tenryuu. Why, oh why did she have to be assigned with the damn chuuniboat?

It should be noted that yes, Kiso did know what hypocrisy meant, but didn't seem to grasp how it affected her.

Anyway, there was only room for one sword-wielding, tough-as-nails light cruiser in the fleet, and Kiso was quite determined that that girl would be her. And this sortie was a good opportunity to demonstrate that to some destroyers that weren't Desdiv 21. She just needed an opponent, with Hatsuharu quite thoroughly impressing Desdiv 6's destroyers.

As if on cue, a pack of Abyssal destroyers, joined by a Ri-class heavy cruiser, popped out of the water. And even better, said Ri was one of the kung-fu variant, this one carrying a sword.

"Tenryuu, you and the girls take care of the destroyers!" she announced, drawing her sword. "I've got the big one."

The other light cruiser gave her an unreadable look, before shrugging. "Eh, it's your skin," she said, before drawing her own sword and accelerating ahead of her's and Kiso's destroyers. "Alright, let's do this, girls!"

Kiso nodded, and sped towards the heavy cruiser, sword held out in a challenge. The Ri-class obliged, charging forward to meet her, their swords meeting in a shower of sparks.

After about five minutes, Kiso came to the conclusion that she may have been a bit hasty in challenging this Ri to a sword duel. Her prized cutlass was dented and notched, the sharpened slab of steel the Abyssal was wielding showing far less wear. Mentally, she made a note to tease Tenryuu less about her own, similarly thick sword. Really, the problem wasn't that the Ri was more skilled than her, so much that it was quite a bit stronger and heavier and had suckered her into a shoving match. Still...

Torpedoes ripped the Abyssal's legs out from under it, and a 5.5" shell to the skull finished it off.

"That was for my sword, you bitch," Kiso spat, before sighing. "Dammit, I need to rethink my strategy for a climactic duel."


	360. Rule 1240

**New** **Rule 1240. Sammy B. we know you're pretty much the real life incarnation of Kharn the Betrayer, that doesn't mean you can keep bugging SoDak for a chainaxe. We've gone through this once with Tenryu and would rather not have a repeat.  
**  
"I am _not_ making you a chainaxe, Samuel B. Roberts," South Dakota stated firmly.

The destroyer escort winced at the invocation of her full name, but plowed onward nonetheless. "It's a chainaxe! It can't be that hard compared to some of the other shit you've built!" she protested.

"It's not the difficulty," South Dakota sighed. "I've been banned from making one and for once I agree with Admiral Holloway. Especially when it comes to you."

"Wait, really?" Sammy B. said, confused. "I mean, I get why the Admiral would ban you from making stuff-"

"Hey!"

"But, like, why would you _agree_ to that?"

South Dakota's eyes widened slightly as the memories flashed through her brain.

~o~

 _It had seemed like a good idea at the time._

 _A chainaxe, properly designed to cut through armor steel like butter, had seemed like the perfect gift for Tenryuu, probably the best melee shipgirl in the world. How the hell was she supposed to know that it would provoke long-dormant draconic instincts?!_

 _On the other hand, her reaction to Desdiv 6 turning the puppy-dog eyes up to eleven and going "Mamma, you'we scawing me..."? Yeah, that she should've seen coming. And now, she had Tenryuu looming over her, Desdiv 6 cradled in her arms, her lone visible eye golden and slitted, and steam billowing out from between her fangs. In the back of her throat, South Dakota could see a golden light building._

 _Oh, yes. This was going to_ suck.

~o~

"Let's just say the last time I gave a gift of a chainaxe it didn't go so well for me," she croaked. "And come to think of it, you'd be even worse, Miss 'Blood for the Blood God'! I'm on enough nerd forums to know what that means!"

Sammy B. bit back a curse. Like many a shipgirl, she'd written Tenryuu's dragon incident off as an urban legend - though she had begun to rethink that when Ning Hai turned into a dragon herself - but if it was true, then South Dakota's reluctance was understandable, and more importantly, likely impossible to budge. Time to break out the big guns.

"But South Dakota!" she whined. "Without the axe I can't obey the words of Lord Khorne that resound in my head!"

Silence fell on the room, the sort of awkward silence that usually follows suddenly, loudly declaring your love for being whipped or boning goats or something like that. It was a silence that was only broken by Phoenix reminding everyone that this was her lab, too.

"Murderhobo DE say what!" she announced from behind Sammy B.

"What-"

*THWACK!*

*KA-BOOM!*

That was as far as she got before a baseball bat with explosives strapped to it slammed into her face and exploded, sending her flying against a wall to slump against it with a concussion.

"Good job, Phoenix," South Dakota said, heaving a sigh of relief. "I need to make some calls, find her a therapist and an exorcist." She glanced back at the DE, and then sent an annoyed scowl at the light cruiser. "Did you have to hit her so hard? We still don't know what repeated concussions do to shipgirl brains!"

"Meh, I've taken plenty of concussions, and my brain's fine! No side effects at all," Phoenix scoffed dismissively.

"Oh, well, that's good," South Dakota replied.

"What's good?"

"That they don't have any side effects."

"What don't have side effects?"

"Concussions!"

"What about them?"

"GAH!"


	361. Rule 1244

**Rule 1244. Libraries exist, so USE THEM./Rule 1245. Ship girls are now banned from public and private libraries.**

Admiral Richardson stared in despair at his bookshelf, with several conspicuous gaps in its stacks. Clearly, lending out his books to his shipgirls had been a colossal mistake. Despair turned to anger and then hard determination, and he turned on his heel, intent on getting his books back.

For the most part, this was a simple, quick task, and they were even intact! Moale had proved more reluctant, and the reason why was made clear when his copy of the Hunt For Red October was returned wrecked by a soak in what seemed to be Crystal Pepsi. Ah well, it was the cheap paperback version, anyway. He'd still shamed her with his stare, but he could've done much worse.

Roanoke, though, proved to be a problem.

"No!" she howled as she clutched the books she'd borrowed, a mix of economics books ranging from high-level textbooks and research papers to Freakonomics. "I need these to fight the ignorance of the Internet!"

"Leaving aside the sheer Sisyphean futility of something like that," Admiral Richardson growled. "Libraries are a thing. You can go and borrow these books from there, and I need my books back!"

"... What's a library?"

~o~

Roanoke stared in awe, kneeling down, at the Kitsap Regional Library in downtown Bremerton. "It's... beautiful..." she breathed.

"Wonderful," Admiral Richardson stated. "My books?"

Wordlessly, the light cruiser handed off the bag she'd stuffed with the books.

"Right..." Richardson muttered, opening the bag and shuffling through it. "Well, looks like everything is here. You have your phone; call when you're ready to be picked up."

As the Admiral turned and walked back to the staff car that'd brought them there, a little voice in his head stated that this was a bad idea. He promptly told the little voice to go to hell, as the last time he'd listened to it he'd woken up in Fisherman's Wharf covered in fish sauce and seagulls. As such, he didn't turn around, and thus missed Roanoke rubbing her cheek against the wall of the library.

~o~

The next morning saw him doing paperwork in his office, in one of his rare peaceful days.

Then his secretary ship, the heavy cruiser Norfolk, poked her head in.

"You have a call, Admiral," she informed him. "From the Kitsap Regional Library."

A lead weight settled in the pit of his stomach, and Richardson just barely managed to nod and pick up his phone. "Hello?"

 _"Your shipgirl needs to be removed. Now,"_ came the strained, irate voice of a librarian. _"First, she snuck back in after closing time, and then she built a fort out of every single book we had and has resisted all attempts to remove her. Let me tell you, Admiral: don't expect your shipgirls to get into any library in the Puget Sound region after this."  
_  
Admiral Richardson let his head fall to the desk.

"Sir?"

"I'll have her removed ASAP," he muttered into the receiver. "No damage to the books, right?"

 _"Of course."_ And with that, the librarian hung up.

Richardson took a moment to compose himself, but judging from the flinch Norfolk gave when he looked up, he didn't quite succeed. "Get West Virginia and Walke. Tell them I have a mission for them," he stated.

"Yes, sir," Norfolk nodded.

~o~

"So, this is the place, huh?" Walke stated, the little destroyer looking up at the library sign with her sunglasses up on her forehead, an old-school boombox on her shoulders. "You ready to do this?"

In lieu of a verbal response, the battleship hefted her air rifle, loaded up with shipgirl-grade tranquilizers.

Walke nodded. "Alright, let's do this."

Destroyer and battleship strode into the library like they owned the place, West Virginia making for the second-floor balcony and Walke heading for the obvious book fort in the back of the building.

"Stay back!" Roanoke shouted as the destroyer got close. "I have an atlas and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Walke came to a halt, carefully placing the boombox on the ground, and gave it a hearty kick. The device let out a heartfelt groan, and then came to life, a thumping dance beat coming to life.

And then she danced. And everyone watching cried, for it was the most beautiful dancing they had ever seen. Roanoke was no exception, and she slowly but steadily leaned out of her book fort to get a better look.

With the song blaring, nobody heard the soft *whuff* of West Virginia's air rifle, nor noticed Roanoke slump over, half out of her book fort. Instead, all eyes were on Walke as she picked up her boombox right as it switched to Michael Jackson's 'Billy Jean' and began moonwalking right out of the library.

"The ultimate distraction," West Virginia muttered, before ghosting down to the ground floor and grabbing Roanoke for extraction.


	362. Rule 1249

**Item 1249: I don't know how you managed it, but give Enterprise her compass back. Her sense of direction, if she had one to begin with, has been completely obliterated.  
**  
U-504 crept along in the shrubbery of San Diego, stalking her target: USS Stingray. One of the Pacific Fleet's most experienced boats, U-504 hoped she could answer a question that had been burning a hole in her brain since she'd arrived in the United States and gotten acquainted with the unique quirks of American submarines.

You see, each navy's submarine group had a... nationally unique quirk. No one knew what British, French, or Italian subs were like, as they preferred to operate loaned German Type VIIs, but Russian submarines were all bloodthirsty to varying degrees, U-boats were all icy emotionless snipers, Japanese submarines had literally invented the term "lewdmarine", and American subs... well, they were kleptomaniacs verging on impossibility. All terrible generalizations that came damn close to stereotyping, but that didn't change the fact that they were true, and now U-504 wanted to know _how_ good an American submarine could be at stealing shit.

Suddenly, Stingray came to a halt, and looked right in her direction. "I know you're there!" she shouted. "What do you want?"

Sighing slightly, U-504 stood, a hand raised in greeting. "Greetings, Stingray," she announced. "I had a question."

Stingray glanced at her watch - an oddity in this era of smartphones - and then shrugged. "Well, I got nothing better to do, so... shoot."

"What's the hardest thing you and your fellow submarines can steal?"

Stingray's brow furrowed in thought, and she cradled her chin in one hand as she thought about it. "Hmm. Well, I don't know," she finally said after a few minutes. "For obvious reasons, we haven't really tested it. Probably the best showing was that time Narwhal stole Excalibur from the Limeys, but... hm."

U-504 raised an eyebrow at that claim. Excalibur? Wasn't it fictional? If true, that implied a great deal about American submarines' ability to steal things.

"Oh, I know!" Stingray said, snapping her fingers. "Wait here, I'll be right back."

U-504 nodded, and Stingray jogged off to parts unknown. The U-boat settled back against the nearest tree to wait, watching the clouds float by. After ten minutes, Stingray showed up again, waving a compass around in her hand.

"Well, whatever level of impossibility I thought we were capable of, we'd better turn them up a notch or three!" the American submarine smugly stated. "Say hello to Enterprise's compass!"

U-504 nodded, and then her eyes widened as she thought through that statement a bit more. "Wait. Enterprise's compass. The one she keeps internal to her own _body_. That compass?"

"Yup!"

The U-boat's eyes widened even further, her jaw hanging open.

"I know!" Stingray crowed. "This is great! I can't wait to tell everyone!"

~o~

Admiral Scheer let out a contented sigh as she sailed through the tropical Indian Ocean at a fuel-sipping ten knots. As much as she missed Jervis Bay on these long patrols, there was something about the waters of the Indian Ocean that was soothing to the soul.

"NOW WHERE AM I?!"

Scheer whipped around, staring at the flattopped form of _Enterprise_ , looking thoroughly bewildered.

"What- but- how-"

"Scheer?" Enterprise said as she spotted the armored cruiser. "What are you doing off the California coast?"


	363. Rule 1252

**Rule 1252. Any more attempts to summon alternate universe versions of existing shipgirls is to stop immediately...things have already gotten awkward.  
**  
Kaga stared at the massive storm front bearing down towards her and the two Americans accompanying her. Something was odd about it; the fact that the clouds were _green_ was a bit of a giveaway.

"So," she said, turning to her compatriots. "Should we avoid this or not?"

"Pah!" Illinois scoffed. "We're battleships! We don't need to worry about anything! Not like the pansy-ass other ships in the fleet!" A beat, and then she turned to the two cruisers trailing behind them. "No offense, you two."

"None taken," Long Beach replied. There was another beat, and then she jabbed her compatriot on the shoulder. "Denver, that means you respond."

"Oh, right!" the light cruiser said enthusiastically, before shifting to confused. "Wait, what were we talking about again?"

"That would be yes, by the way."

"Jesus fucking Christ, how do you _function_?" Illinois wondered.

Kaga tuned out the now-familiar grousing of Illinois in favor of musing about the ironies of the shipgirl existence. She and Illinois had dueled no less than three times during the Great Pacific War, and when the US Navy and JMSDF began summoning shipgirls there had been worries that they'd hate each other on sight. Instead, they minute they saw each other they'd clasped arms in mutual respect. Illinois, because she considered Kaga, quote, "the baddest motherfucker in the Japanese Navy for standing up to me three times", while Kaga had quite appreciated Zuikaku immediately being taken down a peg.

She smirked. "Turkey farm", indeed. Maybe she should look into getting a turkey the next time she was in the States...

As Kaga mused over the logistics of owning a turkey, the small task force, sprinting at twenty-four knots, entered the squall. Aside from the green color, it was a pretty normal squall. Driving wind, pouring rain, massive swells to ride. Almost fun, really. It was also a short squall, and fifteen minutes later they exited out the other side, no worse for the wear aside from being a bit wet.

"Jeez, I can't believe we even considered going around that," Illinois muttered, before perking up at something on the horizon. "Oh, hey, aircraft. We must be getting close."

"Mm, surface ships, too," Kaga added, frowning.

"What?" Illinois blinked, and turned in the direction of the small task force she'd spotted. "Goddamn, you and your damn optics. I _just_ got them on radar." Then she frowned, too. "Wait, who the hell are they? I see Yura there, but who're those CAs in front? And those stripperific meatshields behind them."

"I don't know," Kaga admitted, her hand drifting towards her starboard 16" mounts. Behind her, Denver and Long Beach were locking and loading their 6" guns. Luckily, the foreign shipgirls didn't seem hostile, and when they were in shouting range the lead ship started waving at them.

"Hey, Kaga!" the cruiser called out. "What're you doing out here? And who's that battleship with you?"

"Call me crazy," Illinois muttered. "But I think that's Mogami."

"That's impossible," Long Beach immediately replied. "I fought her. I think I'd remember if she was that..." She mimed lifting up a pair of melons in front of her chest.

Kaga remained silent, especially as Mogami's sister yanked her back and belatedly aimed torpedoes and 8" guns at her, Yura and all but one of the destroyers behind her doing the same.

"Mogami, Kaga's deployed near the Kuriles," the cruiser stated. "And that's battleship rigging, not carrier rigging!"

"Huh?" Mogami squinted, then practically threw herself back. "Ah, it is!"

"You wanna go?" Illinois said, grinning ferociously. "Normally, I'm not in the business of bullying cruisers, but I don't actually _mind_ it."

"Did someone say bullying cruisers?" Denver exclaimed, springing up from where she'd been examining a passing jellyfish. "I'm totally up for that!"

"Holy shit, what happened to Denver?!" one of the trailing destroyers yelped.

The situation was very clearly spiraling out of control, and Kaga knew she had to de-escalate now, or someone was going to die. Probably the kanmusu in front of her; two heavy cruisers, an outdated light cruiser, and four destroyers would be chewed up and spit out against two battleships and a pair of overgunned light cruisers. She quickly but smoothly removed her hands from her rigging, holding them up.

On second thought, from the dive and torpedo bombers orbiting overhead, it might be them. Illinois, Denver, and Long Beach were _really_ good at AA, but she saw the markings of at least three fleet carriers on the planes overhead.

"We were on our way to Yokosuka anyway," she said. "Why don't we work this out there?"

The other heavy cruiser - Kaga made a note to ask her name on the way there - mulled that over, before sighing and nodding. "Well, I can't actually stop you guys, so... sure. Let's go."

Thankfully, as they started steaming back for Japan, Illinois didn't protest. Clearly, even America's most belligerent battleship knew the time and place for a peaceful resolution. Denver seemed to be in one of her peaceful moods. Overall, Kaga was confident she had plenty of time to work on her theory, see what - if any - holes she could poke in it.

~o~

Admiral Goto leaned back in his Admiral's Chair, sighing contentedly. The paperwork was done, the usual craziness had been thus far absent, and so he was taking this rare moment to relax.

Naturally, it was then that Ooyodo poked her head in.

"Ooyodo, whatever it is, I'm not dealing with it," he said without moving from his reclining position.

"Sir, remember that possibility I mentioned when we had to deal with White Menace?" the secretary ship said, perhaps a bit hesitantly.

"No. I'm not dealing with this. I'm just not."

"Sir," Ooyodo snapped. "I have an alternate Kaga and Denver steaming into harbor, accompanied by a cancelled shipgirl and a postwar shipgirl. Like it or not, you're going to be dealing with this."

Groaning, Admiral Goto swung down and stood up, walking over to the window and looking out onto the harbor. Indeed, he could see four shipgirls steaming in behind Mikuma's task force, two familiar and two not. Kaga looked basically the same. Well, except for the battleship rigging on her back, five twin turrets prominently displayed. Denver, on the other hand, looked very different. Her rigging, rather than the mix of triple 6" and twin 5", held five twin mounts he vaguely recalled Worcester and Roanoke sporting. Her outfit was subtly different, and more importantly, she had the wild eyes and disheveled hair of the truly coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.

The other two, though, were unfamiliar. The battleship had familiar rigging: three massive 16" triple turrets, multiple twin 5" gunhouses, and a tower foremast. However, the girl herself was utterly unfamiliar, looking like a cross between a South Dakota and an Iowa, with curly dark hair cut into a short pixie. The light cruiser was clearly related to Denver, with the same build and a similar face, though she was much more tightly groomed.

"Did we get their names?" he asked.

"They named themselves as Illinois and Long Beach," Ooyodo replied.

Illinois had originally been budgeted as a Montana-class battleship, before being reordered as an Iowa, and then ultimately cancelled. Long Beach, as far as he knew, had been a Tacoma-class frigate during the war, and the figure before him was _not_ a frigate, leaving aside the fact that none of the Tacoma-class had been summoned due to the flood of DEs and Royal Navy frigates. Nor did this Illinois quite look like an Iowa or a Montana, though the resemblance was closer.

"So, you think it's an alternate universe situation?" he asked.

"Kaga all but confirmed it to Mikuma on the way here," Ooyodo replied. "Apparently, in her world, the Washington Naval Treaty was never signed, so some of the ships cancelled were built until the Great Kanto Earthquake gave everyone involved a good excuse to cut back."

Goto nodded. As good a divergence as any. Then laughter wafted up from the water, and he looked out to see Illinois doubled over, laughing and pointing at a passing Akagi.

~o~

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"Illinois howled as she pointed at the flagship of the First Air Fleet. "AKAGI... AS A BIRD FARM... OH IT'S TOO GOOD! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Is she usually like this?" Akagi asked, her face in a vacant half-smile of confusion.

"Yes," Kaga and Long Beach chorused, one in dry amusement and one in resigned frustration.

"Hey!"

Eyes turned to Fubuki, who had joined them on the water and was pointing her finger at them.

"You will show Akagi-senpai the respect she deserves!" the destroyer demanded.

Illinois shifted her gaze, and the laughter died off in favor of a derisive sneer. "Oh, really? And what's a meat shield like you gonna do to a battleship like me, huh?" she asked. "Poke me to death with your peashooters?"

Fubuki didn't flinch, and it didn't escape Kaga's notice that three other destroyers and an American destroyer escort had joined her.

"Don't-" Yuudachi growled.

"Fuck-" Shigure continued.

"With our mom!" Inazuma finished.

"I've never beaten up a battleship before!" Samuel B. Roberts chimed in, rubbing her hands together. "This'll be fun."

"Uh, should we do something about this?" Long Beach said nervously.

"Mm, no," Kaga decided. "It'll be a nice, humbling experience for her, I suspect." She glanced to her right, and then her eyes widened. "Wait. Where's Denver?"

*SPUDOW!*

Everyone's attention was drawn to the mountain of mashed potato that _literally_ exploded into being in a deserted corner of the naval base. While everyone else was gaping in astonishment, Kaga felt something bubble up inside of her. God, some things were just a constant in all worlds, weren't they?

"Pfff..."

Long Beach whirled on Kaga, her eyes wide. "Oh no."

"PFFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" battleship Kaga howled as Illinois was pounced on by the destroyers and the mashed potato began to leak into the harbor. "NEVER CHANGE, YOKOSUKA! NEVER CHANGE!"


	364. Rule 1254

**Rule 1254. You can run your own ghost hunting/paranormal groups during your off hours so as long the local authorities are notified ahead of time and you have obtained permission.  
**  
"What's this?" Hornet asked as she fingered the notice tacked to the board outside the Admiral's office. "'Ghost Hunters for Hire!'?"

"Yup," Cabot nodded. "I'd object, but they went through all the official authorities and they get permission beforehand."

"So they've done this before," Hornet noted.

"Once. Went to the Winchester Mystery House a few days ago," the light carrier replied, before her usual frown intensified into a glare aimed right at the larger carrier. "No. You are _not_ inviting them onto your old hull and scaring the crap out of them."

"Wasn't planning to," Hornet retorted, truthfully this time. "So, who's in this little band? It doesn't say on here."

Cabot breathed an internal sigh of relief, though outwardly she merely relaxed her glare back into her usual scowl. "Intrepid, Salt Lake City, and Witek."

"The Evil Eye, the Wallowing Ghost, and the Galloping Ghost of the Long Island Coast," Hornet dutifully recited.

One eyebrow rose up in surprise. "You know your ghost ships, Hornet," Cabot stated.

"Yeah, I'm probably the only shipgirl in the Navy who knows Ranger was nicknamed the Ghost Ship," she stated, before turning and walking away. "Anyway, I'll talk to ya later!"

"Don't scare them too badly!" Cabot called after her.

~o~

The three Ghost Hunters in question were, at the moment, ensconced in their club room, mulling over their failure in the Winchester Mystery House.

"I was so sure we'd capture something!" Intrepid groaned.

"Or even see something," Witek grumbled.

"C'mon, guys!" Salt Lake City said encouragingly. "We just need to persevere, and we'll get our proof of ghosts! And then, it's just a hop, a skip, and a trip to South Dakota and Phoenix for a way to capture them."

 _"Oh, you want to see_ real _ghosts, hmm?"  
_  
All three shipgirls twitched as Hornet's spooky voice wafted through the room.

"Very funny, Horney Maru!" the heavy cruiser called out. "Good joke, ha ha! Now come out!"

 _"And here I thought you guys believed in ghosts,"_ Hornet replied, her voice sultry and yet disappointed at the same time. _"And yet, you doubt me."  
_  
"Occam's Razor," Witek shot back, shivering. When did it get so cold in here? "That you're playing a prank on us is far more likely than you actually being connected to the supernatural."

 _"Logical,"_ Hornet conceded. _"I'm glad. That means I get to_ prove _my claims to you."  
_  
The three ghost hunters blinked in surprise as mist wafted before their eyes. When had that gotten there?! They immediately clumped up, eyes facing every which way, but all they saw was mist.

And then the sounds started.

Voices speaking in the distance, the whine of propeller planes, tools clanging, an omnipresent electrical hum - and footsteps. Clacking, squeaking footsteps, the kind you heard on metal, which was odd, considering most of the base was built on concrete. Witek was muttering "It's not real, it's not real" over and over under her breath, Salt Lake City's head was on a swivel, her eyes wide, and Intrepid's determined glare couldn't hide her knocking knees nor the sweat dripping from her brow.

With a double-flicker, the lights went out, Witek letting out a low whine. Two pairs of footsteps began thumping towards them. And then, a translucent figure in an Apollo-era spacesuit stepped through the ceiling, facing the floor and walking on air as if it was a floor. He paused, inches from the craning heads of the three shipgirls, and lifted up his visor, revealing not a skull, but a burned, blackened parody of a human face.

To their credit, none of the three shipgirls faltered, though they did all jump when Hornet's voice sounded out.

 _"Welcome to Hornet's Spooktacular,"_ she announced, her smug grin nearly audible. _"I'm impressed, Enterprise and Houston didn't last this long."  
_  
The mist cleared slightly, just enough to reveal the door, and Intrepid, Salt Lake City, and Witek immediately bolted for it, tearing the poor piece of wood off its hinges in their haste to _get away_. Sadly, what greeted them was not salvation. Instead, it was a darkened corner, lit only by a single light that revealed a male, shadowed form, one boot missing and neck at an angle the human body was not meant to survive.

"L-Let's go the other way," Intrepid proposed.

"We can't!" Salt Lake City whined.

The other two shipgirls turned around to see the previously clear corridor blocked off by rusted metal. As one, they turned back to the figure in the hall, and as they did so, they heard a noise. A harsh, labored whine of a breath, kind of an "Urrrrrr..." Three audible gulps rang out, and they crept forward, slowly, carefully. The figure didn't move - and then, that last light went out.

They had no time to react before the PA switched on. _"Look behind you,"_ Hornet's distorted voice said. _"I said,_ look behind you."

In spite of themselves, they did - and what greeted them was the face of Hornet, jagged black pits where her eyes should be, a too-wide smile, and her head jerking back and forth, with no transitional movements in between.

"aRE yoU REaDy?"

"IYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

*WHUMP!*

Hornet grinned, back to normal, as all three shipgirls fainted dead away. Taking out a pen and a pad of paper, she quickly scribbled something on it, tossed it on their unmoving bodies, and began to walk away.

"You want ghosts?" the note said. "Come to Alameda and see the ship. You'll have all the ghosts you need."


	365. Rule 1258

**Rule 1258: Prinz Eugen may not change her name to USS Bismarck.  
**  
Admiral Briggs looked over the duty roster, making sure all his shipgirls were ready to go. Carriers Wasp and Ranger, check. Battleships Arkansas, New York, Nevada, and Oklahoma, check. Too bad about Texas and her retirement, he could have used her guns. Heavy cruisers Augusta, Tuscaloosa, and Bismarck, check. Light cruisers Brooklyn- wait a minute.

He went back up to the heavy cruiser section, noting a "USS Bismarck" listed there. Since there hadn't been any USS Bismarck's in the US Navy - ever - this was notably confusing, and he quickly scanned down to the escort carrier section. Nope, Bismarck Sea was still listed where she should be. Briggs now officially had a mystery on his hands, and he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries got people killed, mysteries like that doom lobster in the Atlantic that cleared a two-hundred mile path through Abyssal territory every time it moved. It was real, dammit, no matter how many times the eggheads told him it wasn't!

Ahem.

 _Anyway_ , Briggs shrugged on his coat and exited his office, nodding at Saipan on the way out. "I'll be out for... mm, call it an hour, just to be safe," he said.

"Yes, Admiral," the secretary ship dutifully replied.

It didn't take the Admiral long to reach the heavy ship dorms; all of his shipgirls cruiser weight and above that weren't escort carriers shared the same building, due to how few they were. He was just walking up to the door when Prinz Eugen stepped out, flanked by Tuscaloosa and Philadelphia, all giggling like gossiping schoolgirls.

Actually, considering their age and the usual tendency towards military gossip, that wasn't a bad comparison.

"- And then, this four-year-old kid walks by with his Mom, and he says, 'I wish I had bouncy balls on my tummy to play with whenever I wanted! It'd be fun!' Oh my God I thought she was going to rip that kid's head off!" Prinz Eugen explained, giggling like mad.

"Ah, children," Tuscaloosa mused as Philadelphia descended into peals of laughter. "So amusing in their innocence. Oh, hey Admiral."

"Hello, Philadelphia, Tuscaloosa, Prinz Eugen," he said.

The German heavy cruiser promptly paled dramatically, even as she attempted to look nonchalant. "W-Who's Prinz Eugen? I-I'm the heavy cruiser USS Bismarck, thirteenth of the Baltimore class!"

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on it," Briggs deadpanned, prompting Prinz Eugen to sag in defeat. "So... someone mind explaining this?"

"She just showed up one day out of the blue and the paperwork checked out," Philadelphia shrugged. "And when we tried to ask what happened in Germany-"

"AAAAHHHH!"

To the surprise of Briggs, at the word 'Germany', Prinz screamed, fell to the ground, and curled up in a ball, sucking on her thumb.

"Yeah, that."

"Maybe she talked to a Holocaust denier?" Tuscaloosa mused.

"I doubt a Holocaust denier, no matter how mind-numbingly stupid, would get a reaction like this," Briggs stated confidently.

~o~

"Wait, so it _was_ due to talking to a Holocaust denier?" Briggs incredulously stated.

 _"Yes, though even more stupid than usual,"_ Admiral Hartmann replied. _"He claimed all the bodies were actually fleshy robots the Germans were throwing out, having worn them out."  
_  
Briggs didn't reply, because really, what could you say to that?

 _"Anyway, it wouldn't have been so bad, except Prinz Eugen tried to_ educate _him,"_ Hartmann continued, his face grim. _"That... didn't go so well. In fact, if you wouldn't mind holding onto her for a while while she recovers, I would appreciate that."  
_  
Shaking himself out of his stunned reverie, Briggs hastily nodded yes. When you have two heavy cruisers, you don't just pass up an opportunity for a third, however temporary.


	366. Rule 1260

**Rule 1260: Please do not scare any shipgirls operating in the Atlantic with tales of a nonexistent "doom lobster" lurking underneath. Christ even Abyssals subs are scared of it. Than again, fairies, shipgirls, etc...I'll authorize a sub drone scout.** **I need a drink.  
**  
"Admiral," Saipan groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "For the last time, the 'Doom Lobster' isn't real! And the Germans are getting pissed off at us for scaring their submarines!"

"That's just what it wants you to think!" Admiral Briggs said feverishly as he pounded a mallet against the hull of the 'submarine' he was working on. "Just waiting to lure unsuspecting submarines to their doom!"

"Ugh!" Saipan groaned, throwing up her arms. "I can't deal with this. Guadalcanal, you tell him why this is a bad idea."

"Okay..." the escort carrier trailed off, before looking over the Admiral's 'submarine'. It was a haphazard thing, built out of random scraps of glass and metal bolted together. Despite only being a frame at this point, Guadalcanal knew it would sink exactly once. "I still don't understand what the submarine's for, though."

"It's a prototype!" Admiral Briggs announced as he pounded in another rivet. "For a small mini-sub that can evade the claws and kill that fucker!"

"Did somebody say prototype?" South Dakota suddenly announced.

"Yow!" Guadalcanal yelped, Saipan (not having her personal space violated) merely twitching in surprise. "Where did you come from?!"

The battleship's face turned serious, and she intoned, "I'm from the future." in a low voice.

"... What," Saipan managed to get out.

"Ah, just kidding," South Dakota chuckled. "I just had Phoenix shoot me on a sub-orbital flight."

"Right..." Guadalcanal said, shuffling a bit away from the clearly coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs battleship. "A-Anyway, that's the prototype," she continued, indicating the Admiral's work.

South Dakota followed Guadalcanal's hand, and immediately blanched at seeing what the Admiral was working on.

"W-W-W-W-What!" she stammered, her finger jabbed at the submarine. "What is that- that _abomination_ against SCIENCE! I mean, I love a good Abomination _of_ SCIENCE! as much as the next gal, but this... this is a mockery of everything I've done!"

"You don't understand!" Admiral Briggs suddenly roared, surging to his feet and looming over the suddenly-nervous battleship. "You all understand! I mean, don't understand! The Doom Lobster is out there, it's preying on Abyssal submarines, and if we want to kill it before it kills our submarines, we need these minisubs!"

Everyone stared at the Admiral as he panted from his tirade, eyes still wild. Finally, South Dakota sighed and stepped forward. "Alright, fine. If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this _right_. I'll get to work on these minisubs. _You_ are going to relax and get as much butter as you-"

Briggs suddenly stiffened, then keeled over onto his face to reveal Vulcan standing behind him, a syringe proudly presented in her hand.

"Sedative," she reported.

"Good job, Vulcan!" South Dakota replied, shooting a thumbs-up.

"Wait," Saipan interjected. "You mean you two planned this the whole time?!"

"Of course," South Dakota sagely replied. "That Doom Lobster is clearly some of sort of Abomination of SCIENCE!, and everyone knows such Abominations are not to be poked, lest they poke back."

"Of course," Guadalcanal muttered.

~o~

A pair of Abyssal Ka-class submarines crept along the surface of the Atlantis Massif, barely daring to breathe. This was the home of _it_ , and the Submarine Empress had decreed that they had to know more about _it_ , that mysterious being that had announced its arrival by smashing apart a large fleet and injuring the Empress herself. These two particular submarines had owed favors due to prior poker losses, and so they had drawn the short straw for this mission.

[A-Anything on sonar?] one of the submarines whispered to the other.

[Shut up!] the other hissed back. [We don't know how good its acoustic abilities are!]

Suddenly, in a swirl of water and seafloor muck, something loomed over them. Both submarines slowly looked up, somehow sweating even underwater, to behold a titanic metal creature, miles long, vaguely resembling a lobster, with two beady red eyes and runic swirls all over its armored body.

[I'd say it's acoustic abilities are pretty good,] the first submarine said weakly.

[Just swim, you idiot!] the other yelped, bolting and emptying her stern torpedo tubes at the monster.

[Swimming!]


	367. Rule 1263

**Rule 1263: You are not allow... To... Kill or... Rendered mission incapable, I-19 no matter how much we want to. Despite her... Acts she is one of... The... Best recon subs we have...  
**  
"Admiral, sir?" Ooyodo said as she poked her head in Admiral Goto's office. "We have a situation."

"Does it have anything to do with the crowd of Canadian shipgirls outside my office carrying a tied-up Iku and brandishing hockey sticks and torches?" the Admiral said from where he was gazing out the window.

"Er, yes, sir," the light cruiser replied. "Apparently, she was in the North Atlantic on the Arctic half of her posting, and she groped HMCS Saguenay. The Canadians didn't take that well, as much from the failure to detect her approach as the sexual harassment."

"I see," he said, noting a mop of brown hair and a pair coke-bottle lenses flashing in the torchlight. "Well, we're going to have to stop them, at the very least to save Lieutenant Kamata."

"Already done," Ooyodo reported. "The Mogami and Tone classes have just finished swapping out their 8" for 6.1", and they'll be here to clear things up soon."

 _"Admiral!"_ came Mikuma's voice over the intercom. _"Do we really need to save Iku? I mean, yeah, base security and Lieutenant Kamata doesn't deserve this, but she's at the back of the formation and once we grab her we can just contain this and let it burn out."  
_  
"You cannot let Iku... be..." The Admiral suddenly seized up, shuddering. "Be... k-k-killed... or rendered... mission incapable." The Admiral relaxed, letting out a deep breath. "She is one of t-the... b-best... r-recon subs... w-we have."

There was silence over the intercom for a moment before Tone cut in. _"Bull. Shit. I refuse to believe that Iku is one of our best subs. I_ refuse."

"Look, I have the data, just clear this up, save Lieutenant Kamata a-and... and... and... you know who I mean," Admiral Goto bit out. "We can talk later."

Outside, the sextet of heavy cruisers dove into the fray, sending Canadian shipgirls - none of whom were bigger than a destroyer, naturally - into disarray, and Ooyodo took the opportunity to turn a concerned glance on her Admiral.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"It's... hard to admit that Iku can do _anything_ right," came the reply.

Ooyodo nodded. "I understand, Admiral."

~o~

Mikuma, Mogami, Kumano, Suzuya, Tone, and Chikuma all gaped at the list of Abyssals Iku had sent to the bottom, as well as a stack of mission reports that consisted of most of their major operations and all included the words "And then Iku reported the presence of the enemy" in multiple places.

"Wow," Suzuya finally said. "Like, I didn't realize Iku did so much."

"And now you see why you needed to s-save her," Admiral Goto stated, proud of himself for the only minor skip.

"I still don't like it," Tone grumbled. "But whatever. Where is she now?"

"Lieutenant Kamata is... helping her recover," Goto said delicately.

" **AAAAAAHHHHHHNNNNN!** "

Everyone present flinched as an amorous moan in Iku's voice wafted over the base.

"Helping her recover," Kumano snarked. "Riiiiiiight.


	368. Rule 1266

**Rule 1266. All Submarine girls are restricted to base for the foreseeable future. The complaints are still coming in from the Bars around town about your carousing antics.  
**  
"Ugh..." U-99 groaned as she plopped down on a plush couch in Portsmouth next to her sisters U-100 and U-101. "What a patrol..."

"Trigger-happy Swordfish pilots again?" U-101 remarked as she took in the scorch marks on her sister's wetsuit.

"Got it in one," U-99 replied. "Maybe I should wear a hat that says 'Submarine girl, do not depth-charge'."

"Well, good thing we've just got a relaxing night in planned," U-100 said.

"DID SOMEONE SAY 'A RELAXING NIGHT IN'?!"

"Oh Jesus no," all three U-boats groaned as the door was thrown open. The cause of this was a British submarine girl, stocky, big-busted, and muscular, currently dressed in a sweater, khaki pants, and sturdy boots instead of her usual Victorian male swimsuit.

"I CANNOT LET THAT STAND!" HMS Upholder announced in her usual booming alto. "I MUST SAVE YOU FROM YOUR OWN GERMAN-NESS BY SHOWING YOU A NIGHT ON THE TOWN!"

"Upholder, please, I'm not in the mood," U-99 groaned, rubbing her temples.

 _"We're_ not in the mood," U-100 added. "Now go away and get in another rap battle with Revenge or something."

"YES, SHE IS QUITE THE POET, AND I AM PROUD TO HAVE MATCHED WITS WITH HER!" the submarine replied. "BUT ENOUGH WITH THE CHANGE OF SUBJECT! IF YOU WILL NOT COME WILLINGLY, THEN I MUST ABDUCT YOU FOR YOUR OWN-!"

"If we agree to go, will you keep to indoor volumes?" U-101 snapped.

"HMS UPHOLDER DOES NOT TALK IN ANY LESS THAN-" The submarine paused, and then gave a cough. "Ahem. I can work with that. Now, follow me!"

U-99, U-100, and U-101 all sighed as they stood up and followed after Upholder. "We're gonna regret this in the morning, aren't we?" U-101 groaned.

"I don't think it'll be that late," U-100 grumbled.

~o~

Admiral Cunningham looked over the four submarines in front of him. The three U-boats all looked utterly miserable, while Upholder looked hungover but still her usual boisterous self.

"So," he said. "Quite the bit of carousing you all got up to last night. I especially like the eleven violations of noise ordinances."

"HMS UPHOLDER IS CONSTRAINED BY NOTHING, LEAST OF ALL THE-!"

Cunningham promptly planted his fist in Upholder's open mouth.

"That was a hint that perhaps you should _tone it down a bit_ ," the Admiral growled, pulling out his hand. "Anyway, all submarines are officially confined to the base until further notice."

"Oh thank God," U-99 breathed, before clutching her head. "Also, ow. Bad idea. Ow."

"What?!" Upholder yelped. "B-But I've been the only one causing trouble! Why do all the other submarines get punished, too?"

"And this is why we can't have nice things," U-101 snarked, before clutching her head. "Ow. Bad idea. Ow."

"What she said," Admiral Cunningham confirmed as he finished wiping down his hand. "Maybe once the tide of emails from all the local bars stops, I'll reconsider. I mean, seriously, was what you did to that merlion statue really necessary?"

"It was growling at me, I swear!" Upholder exclaimed.


	369. Rule 1271

**Rule 1271. Stop trying to summon shipgirls from ships that were never completed and were scrapped for some reason or another.  
**  
"So, who are we trying to summon today?" Admiral Goto asked as the summoning circle glowed with power. "I'm pretty sure we've summoned everybody who isn't a submarine."

"This is actually an experiment," one of the scientists answered. "We've summoned Aquila and Graf Zeppelin, shipgirls who were never completed. So we were wondering: how far does it go?"

"We're trying for Kasagi," another scientist explained. "The Americans are working on getting Hawaii. Both of them were over 80% complete when they were cancelled, and hopefully that'll be enough."

Goto nodded, covering his eyes as the glow of the summoning circle reached its peak. As the glow cleared, the Admiral lowered his hand to see not one, but _two_ shipgirls standing in the circle.

"Kasagi, fifth of the Unryu class, reporting for duty," the girl on the left said, dressed similarly to Amagi and Katsuragi, with short brown hair.

"Aso, seventh of the Unryu class, ready to go sink Americans!" the girl on the right, dressed more like Amagi before her Kai modernization, with long black hair tied up with a ribbon, said. Silence descended on the room at her words, prompting the carrier to glance around nervously. "What? Was it something I said?"

"Aso..." Kasagi groaned, her head cradled in her right hand. "The war's over. The Americans are our allies now."

"Oh, right," Aso said, slapping a fist into her palm. Hope blossomed in the room, and then it died painfully as she opened her mouth again. "We're biding our time and rebuilding our strength so that we can have another go!"

"Goddammit, Aso!"

As Kasagi grabbed her sister in a headlock, Admiral Goto felt a throbbing build in his temples. This new carrier was going to be trouble, he just knew it.

~o~

 _"I think that the majority of Holocaust victims were cowards,"_ Aso cheerfully said into the reporter's mic. _"They just let the Germans herd them into these death camps, and not once did they fight back!"  
_  
Admiral Goto stared in gape-mouthed astonishment at the fucking _live broadcast_ he was watching on his computer. Oyoodo gaped as well, and so did Captain Yonehara, Ashigara, and probably everyone on base who had their computers on. And, while it was a molehill next to the Mauna Loa-sized mountain that was Aso's reply, behind her was a demonstration by a pack of ultraconservatives, one of their signs over the carrier's shoulder.

 _"I-I see,"_ the obviously shaken reporter replied. _"A-And what do you think of people who denied that the Holocaust ever happened?"_

 _"Those people are idiots,"_ she immediately replied. _"I mean, there's a mountain of evidence for it. I just can't get over how_ wasteful _it was. You have this entire underclass of undesirables, and you kill them in job lots rather than-"_

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Suddenly, two sandaled feet slammed into Aso's head in a flying side kick, knocking the carrier out of view. Her assailant also went out of view, though it was not long before the camera panned over to Kasagi slinging her sister over her shoulder.

 _"Aso's views are not the views of the JMSDF or the Kanmusu Corps as a whole,"_ she said into the camera. _"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure this idiot doesn't run off and do something like this again."_

~o~

"Ugh."

Katsuragi and Unryu glanced over to their youngest sister, who had been confined to the base after her earlier stunt, and then exchanged looks with each other. Finally, Katsuragi sighed and spoke up. "What's wrong, Aso?"

"This!" she snapped, turning around, sitting up, and jamming a finger into the title of the book she was holding. Both carriers noted that it was a short history of the Duterte presidency. The man had encouraged vigilante killings of "drug dealers" by the million, and had flip-flopped between China and the US constantly. Nobody had been sorry when, shortly after the Abyssals had shown up, he'd been torn to shreds by a Manila mob refusing help from Japanese and American kanmusu despite Abyssals prowling the waters off Samar and Leyte. Multiple times. "How did someone like this ever get into power?! How did it get so bad that anyone would _support_ this man?! See, this is exactly why these countries need a strong hand from more enlightened peoples to manage their affairs, so that this sort of thing doesn't-"

"And I think it's time for you to stop talking," Unryu kindly interrupted.

"But-! This is important!" Aso insisted. "How are we to reform the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere if-?"

"Aso."

The carrier froze as a blue spectral dragon rose behind Unryu's still-smiling face.

"I said it's time for you to stop talking."

Aso promptly shut her mouth with an audible click.

~o~

"Hey, Kaga!"

The carrier turned around, taking in the sight of Aso running up to her, a smile on her face and her arm waving in greeting. "Yes, Aso?"

"Oh, man, I'm so glad to finally meet you!" the carrier answered, grabbing Kaga's hand and pumping it up and down, heedless of the blank, confused look on the older carrier's face. "The best carrier of the First Air Fleet! You're my idol, y'know?"

"What am, chopped liver?" Zuikaku muttered from where she was standing.

"I... thank you, Aso," Kaga said, a light blush dusting her cheeks. "What parts of my service did you most enjoy, if I may ask?"

"Oh, I especially liked your work in China-"

That was as far as she got before Kaga's hand lashed out, grabbed her by the throat, and slammed her against the wall.

"Holy shit, Kaga!" Zuikaku exclaimed.

"I will give you one chance to take that back," Kaga snarled. "My service off the China coast is nothing to be proud of. It is something I _atone_ for with every Abyssal I sink, every merchant ship I save, and for you to praise it..."

The carrier paused, the pressure on Aso's neck easing just enough for her to suck in some air. Then, her teeth grinding, Kaga dropped Aso, spun on her heel, and stalked off, leaving the younger carrier gasping on the ground, clutching her throat and watching forlornly as Kaga stormed off.

"Senpai..." she croaked.

"Goddamn, I haven't seen that level of fail since Aquila tried to fly from Gibraltar."

Aso glanced up at Zuikaku, who was looking at her with a mix of schadenfreude, anger, and pity.

"Look, kid, lemme give ya some advice," she said. "Educate thyself. Learn why Japan - all of us - have solemnly sworn to never do what we did during the war again. Because I guarantee you, if you stay on this path you're gonna be drummed out in a matter of months, with no skills, no money, and no history."

The fleet carrier began to stride off, before throwing one last comment over her shoulder. "Oh, and when you do understand all that? Then you can go apologize to Kaga, and not a second sooner."


	370. Rule 1277

**Rule 1277. Tin foil hats are not allowed.  
**  
"Aso..." Kasagi groaned, running her hand down her face. "What are you wearing?"

"A tinfoil hat!" the carrier proudly proclaimed, adjusting the foil-wrapped cloth on her head. "I'm wearing it so that the Chinese chemtrails don't get self-replicating nanomachines into my chakras!"

"... Y'know, Aso..." Zuikaku said slowly. "When I said 'educate thyself' I didn't mean 'internalize a bunch of conspiracy theories'."

"I saw what we did to the Chinese!" the carrier exclaimed. "They'd totally do this in revenge!"

"You mean _we'd_ do it, way back when," Kasagi snapped.

"Look, Aso, you should ditch the hat," Zuikaku explained. "Not only does it make you look like a crazy person, but... well, from the looks of things, that's aluminum foil, not tin, right?"

"Yeah?" Aso said. "Why does that matter?"

*NOM!*

Aso's face fell from her usual cheer as Akagi drooled on her head, teeth grinding against her skull as the older carrier slurped up the aluminum foil of her hat.

"That's why," Zuikaku said, with just a hint of smugness. "Akagi just loves her some aluminum. Kaga's done a good job getting that tendency out of her, but insert a new situation with aluminum and, well..."

"Sooooo tasty..." Akagi moaned in pleasure.

"Ugh..." Aso groaned as drool soaked her hair and ran down the front of her forehead. "You First Air Fleet carriers just seem determined to shatter my happy illusions about yourselves, don't you. I'm kinda dreading meeting the battleships now."

~o~

"AH! AH! AH! AH!"

"Sister!" Yamashiro wailed, clutching Fuso as the latter howled. "No! Don't die on me! Please, I can't live without you!"

"AH! AH! AH! AH!"

"My God, what kind of paper is that, to draw such a reaction from a battleship like Fuso?" Ise exclaimed in complete sincerity. "It must be some sort of super paper! I should tell the Yuubaris of this, so they may use it against our Abyssal enemies!"

"AH! AH! AH! AH!"

"Fuck this," Hyuuga said, popping the cork on the bottle of wine in her hand and taking a swig. "It's five o'clock somewhere."

"AH! AH! AH! AH!"

Aso stared at the four battleships in front of her: one howling in agony from a paper cut, one acting as if her sister was dying from said paper cut, one absolutely clueless as to the actual situation, and one clearly so jaded from dealing with this shit that she had skipped straight to the alcohol.

"No," she whimpered. "My idealistic view of battleships!"

~o~

"What did you say to me?" Kiso snarled to Tenryuu, her hand on her sword.

"What, you hard of hearing or something?" Tenryuu snarked, her stance utterly nonchalant. "I said that your sword reflects you: it's pretty, sharp, and utterly useless in a combat situation."

Aso gaped at the two chuuni cruisers attempting to vaporize each other with their eyes, and switched her gaze to another pair.

"Please!" Ooi wailed, clutching at Kitakami's calf. "I know I can treat you better, better than he can!"

"Let go of me!" Kitakami roared, raising her leg and kicking out. This action singularly failed to dislodge her stalker.

She glanced even further to the right, desperately hoping for some sort of normalcy, and only beheld Tama lying on her back in a sunbeam splayed out on the floor, her hands curled up like a cat's paws.

 _"Hello, everyone! This is the fleet's idol, Naka-chan!"_ Naka's voice announced from the big-screen TV within the cafeteria. _"Have a sample of my latest single, The Sound of Thunder!"  
_  
As sugary pop filled the room, Aso slumped to the ground, a gloom settling over her.

"What have we become?" she whimpered.


	371. Rule 1278

**Rule 1282. Patrol P-8s are no longer allowed to engage Abyssals when shipgirls are in the area. We love the sentiment, but Harpoons have trouble distinguishing between them and friendlies./Rule 1283. No, girls are not allowed to shoot down the P-8s, even if they shot first.  
**  
Heavy cruiser USS Chicago, Northampton-class, glanced up at the P-8 Poseidon circling overhead and shuddered. The twin-engine plane overhead brought back bad memories, and the fact that she was once again steaming in company of Wichita did _not_ help.

Sending one last sidelong glare at the heavy cruiser happily steaming along, who was nominally in charge of calling for fighter support if they got into trouble, she went back to scanning the horizon with her new search radar. Sure beat the pants off her old SC unit, that's for sure! Beside her, light cruisers Montpelier and Nashville were doing the same, their destroyers getting into a splash fight behind the cruiser group.

They all continued to scan the horizon, largely ignoring the destroyers. As such, the sudden splashing and roar of Abyssals and gunfire coming from _behind_ them caught them completely off guard.

"Fuck!" Chicago barked, whirling around and aiming her guns at the Abyssals - and finding the destroyers already busily hacking them to pieces. Quite literally, in the case of one tomahawk-armed girl. "Oh. Never mind, then."

"So... now what?" Montpelier wondered.

"I say..." Wichita said from behind them, before water splashed all over the three cruisers. "Splash fight!"

*WHOOSH!*

"... Hey, did anyone hear a 'whoosh' sound?" Nashville wondered.

The quartet of cruisers looked up to see a Harpoon missile soaring off the underwing rails of the P-8. A Harpoon soaring _straight for them_.

"Oh shit!" they all yelled in unison, each diving out of the path of the missile. Of course, being a guided missile, it immediately locked onto another target and changed directions.

"Why me?!" Chicago wailed as the Harpoon pursued her, her turbines unable to get her away fast enough. "Ack!"

*KA-BOOM!*

"Oh my God, Chicago!" Nashville cried.

"You bastard!" Wichita barked up at the orbiting P-8, firing off every single one of her 5" guns. As the plane was barely over 5000 feet directly overhead, the spread of proximity-fused shells exploded in a nice neat hexagonal shape around the plane, leaving it with more shrapnel holes than control surface. Naturally, the laws of physics lodged an objection in the form of the plane pitching forward and heading for the water, trailing smoke.

"Ha ha!" Wichita crowed. "That's what you get for killing Chi-" *BANG!* "Ow!"

"I'm not dead, dammit!" Chicago snapped, lowering a smoking 5" gun and totally ignoring the scorched crater in her shoulder and her banged-up rigging. "Now go get the crew out of the plane, before I reach down your throat, grab your spleen, and _turn you inside out!"  
_  
"Y-Yes ma'am!"


	372. Rule 1285

**1285\. In addition to rules 1278 and 1278a, the Culinary Specialists are to stop using the carriers as testers for new food experiments.  
**  
"Alright, everyone!" Mamiya announced as she swept out of the kitchen to a table set up near the entrance. In her hands was a tray full of steaming, red cookies. "Cookies are up!"

"It's here, it's here, it's here, it's here!" Akagi chanted, a hand shooting up to wipe away some drool.

"Oh, those smell great!" Hiryuu exclaimed.

Unryuu merely nodded, her usual slight smile on her face.

With the warm reception, Mamiya scraped the cookies off into a basket, and Akagi immediately scooped up a handful, Hiryuu and Unryuu joining in as soon as they were sure they wouldn't lose their hands by doing so. As such, they had only just bit into the cookies while Akagi snapped up her third.

So what was an immediate reaction for them was a delayed reaction for the bigger fleet carrier.

"Hot!" Hiryuu and Akagi yelped, both of them diving for the nearest sink. Unryuu, on the other hand, kept eating.

"Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have used cumin..." Mamiya muttered.

"Cumin?!" Akagi yelped. "Why would you use _cumin_ in cookies?!"

"I'm experimenting with spices," the food ship replied, pouting slightly. "We can't use cinnamon every time!"

"They're good."

The other three shipgirls turned their gazes to Unryuu, sitting in front of an empty basket with crumbs on her face.

"I like the spice, but they could use a little more sugar," she continued.

"I... see..." Mamiya lied, eyeing the carrier's complete non-reaction to the spicy cookies.

~o~

Lexington, CV-2, eyed the dish in front of her. It was squid tentacles, which was fine, but stewed in _peanut butter_ , of all things. The spice mix, chicken broth, and chorizo mixed in basically didn't register.

"So!" Saratoga chirped. "Go ahead and try it!"

And that was the rub. No matter how unappetizing the dish looked - and it looked _very_ unappetizing - this was her baby sister. She owed it to her to at least _try_ the dish, if only to tell her it was awful. Mentally, she thanked her lucky stars that this dish was clearly experimental, and thus Saratoga would be prepared for criticism. Hopefully.

So, taking her fork, she poked at the dish, and then speared a tentacle, swirling some of the peanut butter over it. The fork moved up, trembling, and slowly, ever so slowly, she opened her mouth and inserted the peanut butter-covered tentacle, chewing.

"So..." Saratoga said as her sister hunched over, her hand over her mouth and her face taking on an ominous green hue. "No good?"

"N- urp!" Lexington hastily suppressed a dry heave before continuing. "No..."

"Well, back to the drawing board, I guess," her sister sighed. "In the meantime, I have a nice aluminum taco salad, want some?"

A genuine smile spread over Lexington's face at that. "Yes, please, I'd like that."


	373. Rule 1289

**Rule 1289. No, having Hawaii and Honolulu imitate the Kamehameha technique from Dragon Ball during construction will not summon the nuclear submarine USS Kamehameha. Don't even try.**

 **AN: I hate to announce it, but this fic will be on hiatus during the month of November starting when my buffer runs out. I've decided to try the FaNoWriMo challenge, and so I'll be cranking out fifty thousand words for a proper long-form Kancolle fic, and with my full-time job that leaves no time for both this and the new fic.**

 **On the plus side, this should also help recharge my creative energies, so look forward to the return!  
**  
"Soooo..." the recently summoned Hawaii drew out. "Tunny?"

"Tunny," Honolulu replied. "Wonder what she called us out here for?"

The answer wasn't long in coming as the submarine ran up to them, a curious modification to her rigging quite visible.

"Hey, Tunny," Honolulu greeted. "So, what'd you call us out here for?"

"And what's with the oil drum on your back?" Hawaii added.

"Oh, this?" Tunny said, glancing back at said cylinder. "That's the hanger for my Regulus missiles! I finally got my second remodel!"

Both cruisers' eyes widened, and they took a step back. "Aren't those _nuclear_?" Honolulu asked nervously.

"Normally, yeah, but Admiral Holloway didn't want them to be, so I'm stuck with conventional explosives until I can nab some spare warheads," the submarine replied. "But we're getting off topic! I called you here for a very important job!"

That allowed Honolulu and Hawaii to relax, and the latter took up the questioning. "Whatever it is, we'll at least give it a fair hearing!"

"I suppose that was the best I could ask for..." Tunny muttered. "Okay, I need you both to do the Kamehameha."

Silence descended on the field they were on. It stretched on just long enough to be awkward before Honolulu broke it.

"What."

"You need to perform the Kamehameha, while concentrating on your sheer Hawaiian-ness!" Tunny enthusiastically explained. "That way, there'll be enough power and Hawaiian-ness to summon Kamehameha!"

"That's..." Honolulu bit out.

"Genius?" Tunny supplied, grinning.

"Completely stupid!" Honolulu snapped. "'Concentrate on your Hawaiian-ness'? What the hell does that even mean?! And how is that going to help us summon a goddamn _ballistic missile submarine?!_ Practical considerations aside, do the words 'political shitstorm' mean anything to you?!"

"Ka..."

Tunny and Honolulu turned around to see Hawaii in the iconic stance, crouched and with her hands cupped at her side.

"See, Hawaii has the right idea!" Tunny crowed.

"Me..."

The first flickers of what appeared to be flame wafted over the large cruiser.

"Well, _something's_ happening..." Honolulu muttered.

"Ha..."

The flickers intensified before bursting into a blazing blue aura.

"Uh, Hawaii...?" Tunny said nervously, taking a hesitant step back.

"Me..."

With an odd whine, a blue ball of energy burst to life in her cupped hands. Honolulu was already diving for the ground.

 _'At least she's looking out to sea,'_ was her last thought.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Hawaii's hands shot out, and two things happened at once. First, the blue aura burst into an outright sphere of energy that obliterated the ground beneath her. Second, an iridescent beam of energy, an obvious 'ball' at the front, sprang from her hands, shooting out to the horizon with great speed. It had barely gone a second when it impacted the water - and the resulting explosion knocked Tunny flat on her ass, the blue-tinged mushroom cloud stretching into the stratosphere.

Once the shockwave and noise had passed, Honolulu poked her head up.

"Mawp... mawp... mawp..." came the voice of Tunny from where she was lying face-up on the ground, her eyes utterly vacant.

"Ugh..." Hawaii groaned from her position face-down in the dirt. "Don't expect me to do that more than once per battle. Ugh, I could eat a whole cattle farm..."

"We'll save it as a last resort, then," Honolulu replied, grunting as she lifted up the much heavier Hawaii. "Now, let's get back to San Diego and explain before Admiral Holloway blows a gasket."

"Mawp... mawp... mawp..."

"And what about her?" Hawaii asked, jerking her head in Tunny's direction.

"She failed to get down in time, so she gets to deal with it herself."


	374. Rule 1296

**Rule 1296. To whoever showed USS Constitution her other self in Fallout 4, I hope you're proud of yourself. She is now determined to strap on rocket engines and replicate the feat her other self did in the game.  
**  
"Finally," Constitution muttered as the loading bar on her computer filled, the dulcet tones of Fallout 4's menu sounding out. "Now, let's see if the hype is real. It better be, if it wants to match New Vegas."

The frigate set about playing the game, quickly progressing into Boston itself. And there, she found her ship self, with-

"Rockets," she deadpanned. "They have _rockets_ strapped to my hull. What, do they want to make me fly?" One dialogue wheel later, and her jaw was hanging loosely. "Oh my God, they do want to make me fly." She clicked her jaw shut. "Can they?"

Some time later, she watched, her jaw hanging loose again, as the pixelated version of herself soared through the skies of Boston, propelled aloft by a series of rocket motors strapped to her sides.

"I gotta figure out how to do that!" she exclaimed.

~o~

"Huh. That's odd."

South Dakota didn't turn around from the livestream she was watching, but she did fire a question over her shoulder. "What's odd?"

"I'm missing, like, half a dozen RATO units," came Phoenix's reply. "I hope one of our shipgirls didn't strap them to their car for a joyride in the Mojave again."

Shrugging, South Dakota took a sip of her coke - and promptly choked on it as she saw Constitution walk into the camera view, her rigging up and two RATO units attached to it.

"Uh, Phoenix, I think I know where they went," she said weakly.

"Really?" the light cruiser asked as Constitution jammed a button in her hand. "Where'd they go, then? And what are you watching?"

The light cruiser poked her head over South Dakota's shoulder just in time to see the rockets activate. The camera only barely managed to keep up with the acceleration that sent Constitution corkscrewing into the air.

"That's where," South Dakota answered, her fellow mad scientist gaping in stunned horror.

Soon, the inevitable happened: Constitution's uncontrolled flight took a downturn, and she smacked the water at several hundred miles per hour. At least Boston harbor rescue services were prompt in their response, though the chunks of wood floating to the surface were not a good sign.

"Welp," South Dakota said after a few minutes. "I guess she found Fallout 4."

~o~

"You get deployed via _intercontinental ballistic missile?!_ " HMS Indefatigable demanded.

"Verily," HMS Thunder Child nodded in reply. "For all my better qualities, I will admit, my steaming speed is not impressive, even compared to the older battleships. As such, a more expeditious means of delivering me to the battlefield was needed."

The frigate was starry eyed as she suddenly grabbed Thunder Child's gauntleted hands. "Can I ride it, too?!"

"Ah... if you wouldn't mind letting go?" the torpedo ram said.

"Oh, sorry!"

"In any case..." Thunder Child sighed as she pulled out a cloth and wiped down her gauntlets. "I would not recommend such a course of action. With my coal fuel and iron construction, I am as inert as possible for a warship, and quite sturdy. The acceleration still pins me to my seat and forces my fairies to conduct a top-to-bottom inspection for microfractures after every deployment. A wooden warship like yourself would likely be reduced to splinters."

Looking up from her gauntlets and her lecture, Thunder Child realized that Indefatigable was gone.

"Oh, bother," she muttered. "I do hope that frigate doesn't do anything too daft."

The sound of a rocket launching wafted over the base, and Thunder Child glanced out the window to see her usual ICBM ride soaring off into the sky.

"Bother."


	375. Rule 1307

**Rule 1307. We don't have the budget for a hard light holographic range, Yuubari! The electricity costs alone would put us in the red!  
**  
"EUREKA!" Yuubari shouted, holding up a device of some kind.

Yuubari winced, pulling up her welding mask at the noise. "Great, good job. Couldn't you have done that without blowing out my eardrums?"

"Ah, sorry," Yuubari apologized. With that done, she plunked the device down in front of her other self. "But seriously, check this out!"

With a flick of a switch, a holographic Ne-class heavy cruiser sprang to life, brandishing her armored fists.

"Okay..." Yuubari said, reaching out. "So you made a holographic projector, what's so Eureka-worthy about-" Her finger brushed against the hologram, stopping dead in its tracks. "What."

"This isn't any old holographic projector!" Yuubari smugly announced as Yuubari poked the hologram again. "This is a hard-light holographic projector! Fully solid!"

"How... I- we looked at this!" the light cruiser exclaimed. "We couldn't get the photons to solidify, and the power requirements were ridiculous!"

"Well, I figured it out," the other light cruiser replied, sounding a tad annoyed. "Though, uh, I still haven't solved the power issue. On a related note, we're out of batteries."

Suddenly, the lights flickered and went out.

"So you plugged it into a wall socket?"

"Yeah..."

~o~

"... And that's why we should build a holographic training range!" Yuubari explained.

Admiral Goto turned from the powerpoint Yuubari was using over to Captain Yonehara. He was not disappointed; the logistics officer was pale, shaking, and clutching a snapped pencil in one fist.

"This will cost _how_ much?" he said, his voice only barely staying steady.

"Sixty-six trillion, eight hundred billion yen," Yuubari answered. "Like, I covered all of this."

"That's... That's two-thirds of the entire Japanese government's operating budget!" Yonehara shouted, surging to his feet. "The _Americans_ couldn't afford something like this! And this is just the cost to build! I saw the electricity requirements, we'd need to attach a half-dozen nuclear plants to the base to provide electricity, and that would pay for our annual operations twice over!"

Silence fell on the room, broken only by Yonehara panting.

"So... that's a no, right?" Yuubari confirmed.

"Gah!"

"If you're quite done traumatizing my supply officer," Goto cut in. "Then yes, that's a no."

Grumbling, Yuubari packed up her computer and stormed out of the conference room. The minute she was out the door, Yonehara sent Goto a calculating look.

"You do know she'll try to build that anyway, right?" he said.

"Yes, but then she'll be doing it on her own budget and not ours," Goto replied. "And who knows? She might actually build that thing, and it would be very useful to have."


	376. Rule 1311

**Rule 1311. The Admiral is not a grand prize for any competitions that the shipgirl retinue holds in their respective naval base.  
**  
It was lunchtime in San Diego, and the carriers, for once, were all together. Even without the quartet posted to Bremerton, they still numbered twenty-seven fleet carriers and nine light carriers, the greatest concentration of naval air power in the world. It was a point of pride that even the Yokosuka and Scapa fleets together couldn't match their airpower. Competition was, naturally, fierce.

"Listen up, everyone!"

And that's without someone stirring the pot.

All eyes turned to Midway, who'd parked herself on top of one of the tables and was barking into a megaphone.

"I am pleased to announce that we're having a carrier competition this Saturday!" she continued. "You will be tested on fighter combat, dive bombing, torpedo bombing, and package strikes!"

To her disappointment, though not surprise, the response was tepid, mostly confined to a 'whoo!' from Ticonderoga. As such, she pulled out her big gun.

"The third place winner gets a one-year all-you-can-eat voucher for Ben and Jerry's!" she announced, to somewhat more enthusiastic response. "The second-place winner gets upgraded sufficiently to handle Crusaders and Corsairs, and for first..." Midway paused for effect. "A voucher for one week of Admiral Holloway's time!"

The room fell silent, and Midway silently counted down in her head.

 _'3... 2... 1...'  
_  
"WHAT?!"

"Oh boy..." Enterprise muttered as the entire room erupted into incredulous chatter. "This is gonna be an utter disaster, isn't it?"

"Eeyup," Hornet the younger drawled. "Whaddya say we compete with each other, and laugh at our fellows as they make fools of themselves?"

"I'd like that."

Sadly, the two were in the minority.

 _'T-This is my chance!'_ Saratoga thought to herself. _'I-I may never be the Admiral's wife, b-but I can get this, at least!'_

 _'Saratoga will want to win that first prize,'_ the elder Lexington thought, sending a glare at her younger Essex counterpart. _'And_ she _will want that prize, too. It is decided: I must help my sister with all her might!'_

 _'Auuuu, I want to support Sara...'_ Lexington the younger mentally moaned. _'B-But I also wanna be with the Admiral, too!'_

 _'I refuse to believe the Admiral authorized that prize,'_ Coral Sea thought to herself. _'Which means my dear sister went behind this back. In that case, none must get that prize!'_

All around the room, the scene repeated: some carriers were aiming for a prize, while others were looking to support their sisters, and still others sought only to impede their fellows. And while the prospect of nothing but ice cream and launching Crusader jets were all quite tempting, the grand prize, a week with the Admiral, was the most sought-after.

"The competition will be in one week's time," Midway announced. "See you then!"

~o~

The day of the competition started bright and early, finding every single fast carrier out on the water outside of San Diego. Well, every fast carrier, and one escort carrier.

"Not that we mind or anything, but... what are you doing here, Kitkun Bay?" Enterprise wondered.

"I'm here to watch the utter shitshow that's about to happen!" she said, eagerly scanning the line of visibly tense carrier girls. "That, and I'm pretty confident of my skills."

"Eh, whatever," Hornet shrugged. "Enjoy the show."

Midway steamed up to the group, her flight deck spotted with QAD Victimraiders, radio-controlled Skyraiders that would serve as targets. The carriers all tensed, their bows raised.

"And... go!" Midway announced, launching her drones.

Almost immediately, the vast majority of the carrier line erupted into chaos. Saratoga, Lexteen, and the elder Yorktown were the only ones to even attempt launching planes; the rest of the carriers were attempting to beat the stuffing out of that trio and each other. From Bon Homme Richard and Franklin throwing lightning bolts willy-nilly, Coral Sea brandishing her bayoneted rifle at anyone who even twitched towards their bows, all the Independences besides Princeton diving onto Antietam and Hancock, and Lexington finding herself decidedly outmatched by Wasp, Bunker Hill, and Ticonderoga, all that was missing was a cartoonish dust cloud, with stars and limbs frequently flying out.

Set a ways from the duel, Enterprise, Hornet, and Kitkun Bay launched their fighters entirely unmolested. Enterprise's and Kitkun Bay's Wildcats were sadly beaten to the targets by Hornet's Corsairs, and while there were plenty of targets to go around, Hornet's head start was too much to overcome.

"You want a carrier for anti-air, that's me!" Hornet boasted.

Kitkun Bay responded by sticking her tongue out at the bigger carrier.

Once the last QAD hit the water, Midway eyed the ball of violence ongoing, then at the unengaged trio. "So, do you want to wait, or...?"

A twin 5" mount came sailing out of the melee, splashing into the water and sinking below the waves.

"Let's not, I don't think is gonna end anytime soon," Enterprise remarked.

"Alright!" Midway chirped. "That's your cue, Nebraska!"

"Wait, I don't remember a Nebraska during World War II," Kitkun Bay said.

Any further questioning was cut short by several model ships bubbling to the surface.

"... You had your target ships deployed by _SSBN?!"_ Hornet demanded.

"I have a lot of strings to pull," Midway said mysteriously. "Anyway, get your dive bombers out, girls!"

The three carriers raised their bows again, aircraft loaded, and Hornet and Enterprise sent each other smug looks.

"Dauntlesses, huh?" Hornet remarked. "They fit you. Slow and old."

"And reliable, too, don't forget that," Enterprise shot back. "Unlike those second-class sons of bitches you've got."

"Ladies, you're both pretty," Kitkun Bay cut in. "Can we get on with this with a little less bickering?"

"Begin!"

Planes were launched, and two things quickly became clear. First, outdated or not, Enterprise's Dauntlesses were still the best around. Second, Kitkun Bay's Avengers were _not_ built for dive bombing. All the barges were left burning, but where Hornet was only a bit behind Enterprise, Kitkun Bay had barely gotten any.

The torpedo competition was up next. This time, all the competitors were launching Avengers, and the fleet carriers took one look at the scale Yamatos that bubbled up and loaded up their full complement of Avengers: 15 and 18, respectively. Kitkun Bay, meanwhile, loaded three.

Enterprise and Hornet launched first, their Avengers easily nailing a full half their torpedo loads and sending the models gurgling to the bottom. Once they were done, Kitkun Bay launched her torpedo planes, and not only did all three bombers nail all three torpedoes in a classic hammer and anvil, to the amazement of everyone watching each torpedo _hit a faulty joint,_ instantly turning the model belly-up.

"And that's how you do it!" Kitkun Bay smugly announced as she recovered her Avengers, before blinking at the dumbfounded looks her two competitors were sending her way. "What?"

Enterprise clicked her mouth shut. "Nothing. We have a competition to fini-"

Another gun mount, this one a twin 40mm, sailed out of the melee and clonked the carrier on the head.

"Okay, that's it," she growled, rubbing her head. "Everyone _dies_. Who's with me?"

Hornet and Kitkun Bay exchanged looks, and then adopted identical bloodthirsty grins.

~o~

"Alright," Admiral Holloway groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Can any of you tell me why I have exactly _three_ operational carriers today?"

A piece of paper was slapped onto his desk, and Holloway read 'The owner of this voucher is entitled to one week of the Admiral's time'.

"Of course..." he groaned.

"Sorry, Admiral," Midway apologized. "I didn't expect things to get this out of hand."

"Hornet and I are sorry, too," Enterprise added, rubbing the back of her head. "We, uh, might have been a tad enthusiastic about breaking this up."

"And I'm not sorry at all!" Kitkun Bay chirped, holding up her ice cream voucher.


	377. Rule 1314

**Rule 1314. Ship girls can't use their status as ship girls to get preferential seating at football games. The NFL and NCAA are not happy with us./Rule 1315. After the "Super Bowl Incident", ship girls are banned from attending any and all future NFL games.  
**  
Roger Goodell fumbled with the key to his hotel room. Damn, but the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl were exhausting. He was besieged by fans, reporters, players, coaches, and owners, all looking for _something_. Some days he wondered why he still stayed on as commissioner. Oh, right, because he held SO MUCH POWER!

Ahem.

Anyway, he finally got the newfangled electronic lock open, reached out to turn on the light - and then flinched as someone else in the room did it for him. There, sitting on his bed, were two women he recognized as the shipgirls Minneapolis and Oakland. And he had a sneaking suspicion they weren't here to congratulate him on his handling of the league.

"Hello, Mr. Goodell," Oakland announced.

"Y-You seem to have me at a disadvantage," Goodell said, nervously tugging at his tie.

"Oh, you know who we are, Commissioner," Minneapolis picked up. "And I'm sure you can guess why we're here."

Considering the Vikings and Raiders were playing in the upcoming Super Bowl, he could indeed guess.

"W-What do you want?" he asked.

"Nothing major," Oakland said. "Just a matter of... seating."

Goodell gulped audibly. "Y-Your tickets will be emailed shortly."

"Excellent. Pleasure doing business with you, Commissioner," Minneapolis replied.

The lights flickered, and then went out, prompting Goodell to flinch in terror. Thankfully, they switched back on again a few seconds later, but the fact that the two cruisers had vanished in the interim did not put his heart at ease.

~o~

"I bring buffalo wings!" USS New York announced as she swept into the room, which also held Nevada, Oklahoma, Augusta, Arkansas, and Tuscaloosa. Or, in other words, the heavy ships of the Atlantic fleet, not a one of whom had a real horse in the race in front of them. "So. Who do we root for?"

"Vikings," all the other shipgirls chorused.

"I mean, we kind of have to root for the one that has zero Super Bowls to the Raiders' three, right?" Ranger remarked as she swept in with a cart stacked high with bowls of tortilla chips and salsa.

The shipgirls settled in for the game, laughing at the commercials, oohing and aahing at the appropriate moments, and then enjoying the halftime show. It was as the fourth quarter was winding down, tied at seventeen apiece, that they saw them.

"Oh, hey, look, it's Minneapolis and Oakland!" Tuscaloosa remarked as the camera panned over the two cruisers, who were sitting next to each other and looking none too pleased.

"Ha, wow, they both look like they're taking a dump!" Arkansas laughed.

The camera moved on, and everyone settled in. The next six minutes of football crawled on, both offenses spinning their wheels and neither defense able to get a score. And so it was that it became the first Super Bowl to go into overtime.

Oakland and Minnesota proceeded to trade field goals and stall out again.

 _"Dammit, I knew we shouldn't have kept Walsh on!"_ they heard Minneapolis howl from the stands as a field goal sail right.

 _"Get bent, Janikowski!"_ Oakland howled three and a half minutes of game time later as another field goal sailed left.

"Are we gonna run out of time?" Augusta muttered.

 _"We have a tie!"  
_  
"Oh my God we did run out of time," Nevada breathed. "This isn't just the first Super Bowl with overtime; it's the first tied Super Bowl!"

"Can they do that?" Ranger demanded. "Can they really have the motherfucking _Super Bowl_ end in a tie?!"

 _"Noooooooooo!"  
_  
*CRUNCH!*

All the shipgirls present winced as Minneapolis reached down, tore her seat out of the stadium, and threw it down into an empty part of the field. That seemed to trigger something, as the fans in the stands began grabbing anything they could throw and hurling it down at the grass. Well, that and leaving.

"Welp, so much for my Crimson Tide season tickets," Tuscaloosa muttered.


	378. Rule 1316

**Rule 1316. The impromptu "naval slingshot" of stretching bungee cords between two battleships and having a destroyer or cruiser launch themselves during sorties is to stop.  
**  
"Dammit!" Hood groused as she tossed the papers she'd been going over into the air. "Twenty percent! A twenty percent increase in repairs after Admiral Collingwood banned me from using Campbeltown!"

King George V raised an eyebrow at the outburst. "Surely she can't make that much of a difference."

That prompted an annoyed scowl from Hood, and the battlecruiser snatched the papers out of the air, stacked them, and passed them to the battleship in one smooth motion. King George V took them, shooting Hood an odd look, and then starting scanning over the documents.

"Well, clearly we need a more effective way to get her on the battlefield," she said after a few minutes. "What's her top speed again?"

"Twenty-eight knots," Hood rattled off immediately. "And even slower in heavy seas."

"Well, just having her come along isn't going to work, then," King George V muttered. "And she can't build up enough of a head of steam in those Atlantic swells to do damage anyway."

Both shipgirls fell into stumped silence as they mulled the problem over. Ideas and possibilities were considered and discarded rapid-fire. And both battleships soon came to the same, dispiriting conclusion.

"No," King George V spat fervently.

"We need to talk to Vanguard, Georgie," Hood countered. "She's the only one who could come up with something that'll help!"

"No, I refuse!" was the reply, the battleship grabbing onto her desk.

"You know that's not gonna stop me!" Hood barked, grabbing King George V's legs. "Now, one last chance! We can do this like mature individuals, or we can be all childish!"

"She scares me!" King George V whined petulantly.

"Right," Hood muttered, before lifting and yanking. The battleship's grip on the desk didn't falter, and neither did the desk itself.

The screws holding it in the concrete floor, on the other hand...

~o~

Vanguard blinked at the sight of Hood dragging King George V dragging a desk towards her laboratory.

"That sounds like the start of a joke," the battleship muttered, before loudly clearing her throat.

"Oh, hi Vanguard," Hood said, pausing in her exertions. "We could use your help on something."

"What's this 'we' shit, Hood?!" King George V barked.

"Ignore her," Hood said, her usual smile notably strained as she dumped her fellow battleship's legs on the ground. "Anyway, we need some way to get Campbeltown into battle fast."

Vanguard grinned the grin of the mad genius. "I've got just the thing! Follow me!"

~o~

"I can _not_ believe you agreed to do this!" King George V shouted.

"I can't believe _you_ agreed to do this," Hood deadpanned.

"Someone needs to be a check on this insanity!"

The two battleships were steaming through the North Atlantic, a massive piece of rubber with a leather sling pouch strung between them. At the moment, it was being slowly stretched backwards by Campbeltown, aimed straight at a force of Abyssal Ta-class battleships trying to get at the convoy they were helping escort.

"This... is gonna be AWESOME!" Campbeltown crowed as the rubber came to a halt - and then rebounded, flinging her forward. To the surprise of everyone present, as the destroyer shot forward a mix of flames and crackling lightning burst to life around her. And as she plowed head-first into the first Abyssal battleship, that flame and lightning burst out in a rapidly expanding cloud of hot gasses.

Or, in English, a fucking hugeass explosion.

"... Okay, I wasn't expecting _that_ ," Hood muttered as bits of exploded Abyssal rained around her.


	379. Rule 1324

**Rule 1324: Admirals are not allowed to ignore the world as it burns around them.  
**  
Portsmouth was burning.

At the time, no one was entirely sure why, though it was eventually revealed that Vanguard had brought back an Icelandic lava demon from her recent sortie in the Denmark Strait. The dorms had been quickly evacuated, and the shipgirls had immediately set about assisting the municipal fire department, with priority going to keeping the flames out of the ammo storage facilities. Sadly, that left quite a few less important - and explosive - buildings to be consumed by flames.

In one of those buildings, Admiral Cunningham sat on a chair in front of a table, flames roaring around him.

"This is fine," he said, a brittle smile gracing his face.

"Like hell!"

Cunningham barely reacted as Revenge burst through the door, flames licking at her and finding themselves unable to find purchase. He did react when the battleship grabbed him around the waist, grabbing onto the table in an iron grip.

"No!" he shouted. "I won't go back! You can't make me!"

"Admiral, y'do know dat I c'n just carry you and da table outta here, right?" Revenge snapped, punctuating her point by slinging the Admiral over her shoulder and walking towards the door, table dragging on the floor behind her.

"No! Revenge, I order you to leave me behind!" Cunningham howled.

"Dat's just da smoke talkin'," Revenge replied. "Which means, under naval regulations, I c'n safely ignore ya."

Admiral Cunningham made a noise that should not have been producible by a human mouth, but he made no further attempts to try and get free. Revenge got out of the building just as it collapsed into itself, and deposited him there - at which point he bolted up and made a run for another burning building, only for a dart to come out of nowhere and stick him in the leg.

Revenge whistled as Resource lowered her air rifle. "Nice shot."

"I think we need a new Admiral," the repair ship muttered.

~o~

Admiral Goto took a sip of tea as chaos reigned around him, Ooyodo, Ashigara, and Nagato doing their best to manage the situation.

"Shit, Akagi's gotten into the food stores!"

"The Yuubaris are trying to turn it off, but they say it'll be another fifteen minutes!"

"Somebody stop Yuudachi or Tama before they run into each other!"

"Musashi did _what_ with two gallons of vanilla frosting?! And why does she need that many cucumbers?!"

"Mogami just took out half our heavy cruisers!" A snapping noise came over the radio. "And a structural member!"

Slowly, Goto put his teacup down with a soft clink and said, "This is fine."

At which point he suddenly found he had three angry shipgirls holding him by the collar and glaring at him.

"This. Is. Not. Fine," Ooyodo growled. "Now help us, or I swear to God, even Kongo won't be able to stop me from murdering you!"


	380. Rule 1327

**Rule 1327. Limbo contests are now banned.  
**  
"So," Kinu said as she stared over the back of one of the lounge's chairs. "I found your old videos, Musashi."

The battleship raised an eyebrow, and then sniffed haughtily. "And you bring this up why? I , Musashi, am not and have never been ashamed of my old work."

"Never said you were," Kinu seamlessly transitioned. "I mean, it's impressive stuff, especially the flexibility."

"Yes, I, Musashi, am quite proud of my flexibility!" the battleship agreed, lowering her hand over her breasts, light glinting off her glasses. "It is that quality that put me above all my competitors!"

"Was."

"Eh?" Musashi said, looking down in confusion at Kinu.

"Was what put you above all your competitors," the light cruiser elaborated. "I mean, it's been what, two years? In an industry that's very much for the young? And suddenly being partially steel couldn't have helped, either."

A scowl marred Musashi's face as she rose to her full height and loomed over Kinu. "I, Musashi, am still the most flexible around," the battleship growled. "And I can prove it."

~o~

"Sister..." Yamato groaned, palming her face. "What are you doing?"

"I, Musashi, am proving my flexibility to all my naysayers," her younger sister replied as she stretched out her legs. The battleship was dressed in a grass skirt and breastband - and astoundingly, aside from her bare legs, the outfit actually covered _more_ than her usual combat uniform.

"And... why is Aoba over there with a video camera?" Yamato wondered.

"Oh, Musashi wanted this out on the internet to increase exposure," the heavy cruiser replied, adjusting her camera lens a tad. "I know some distributors who'll pay through the nose for this."

Yamato stared at Aoba for a second, then sighed and turned back to her sister. "You're going to do this no matter what I say?"

"Of course!" Musashi declared, pushing her muscles one final time and standing. "I'm ready! Who is my opponent?"

Katori poked her head around a nearby corner, her usual bun undone and letting her hair flow over her shoulders. She also looked incredibly nervous, and took one look at Musashi and ducked back behind it.

 _"I can't do this!"_ everyone present heard her shout-whisper.

 _"Oh, come on!"_ Kashima shout-whispered back. _"You were all gung-ho about this ten minutes ago!"_

 _"That was then and this is now!"_ came the reply. _"She's_ right there! _How can I face her - in a contest, no less! - in this kind of outfit and_ not _think of all the sessions I had watching those videos?!"_

 _"Yeah, well, Aoba's there, too, and who knows what she'll do if you-"_

"We can hear you, you know," Yamato loudly announced.

The silence that followed was deafening, and the Katori crept out from her cover, dressed the same as Musashi. Well, aside from the luminescent blush dusting her cheeks.

"L-Let's just get this over with, okay?" she said, attempting to sound authoritative.

"Alright, now that everyone's here, we can begin the limbo competition!" Kinu announced as she strolled in, a tap on her phone queuing up some Hawaiian music. "Girls, do the thing!"

Shiranui and Arare marched in, holding a wooden pole above their heads.

"How did Shiranui get roped into this?" the Kagero groaned, but both she and Arare dutifully parked themselves in the middle of the room and raised the bar above their heads.

"Begin!" Kinu announced.

Both shipgirls strode forward and bent back under the bar in time to the music. For Katori, it was simple. Musashi, on the other hand, had to bend down quite a ways. The destroyers dutifully lowered the pole, and the game continued.

As the pole lowered, Musashi and Katori bent further and further back, which did... interesting things to their breasts. Yamato's scowl deepened, the destroyers were cheerfully oblivious, Kashima was looking decidedly hot and bothered, and Aoba had to tug at her collar on multiple occasions.

Finally, Katori was straining to stay upright and Musashi was outright bridge-walking, and while the training cruiser fell over, Musashi, in an impressive feat of bodily control, threaded her legs and waist through before raising that part of her body to lower her head and chest under the pole.

"HA!" Musashi barked. "I, Musashi, commend you, Katori, but this is my victory!" She paused, her smile gaining a slightly lecherous overtone. "So, which one of my videos did you like the best?"

Katori let out a sound like a goose being strangled underwater, and then fell away in a dead faint.

"Well, that's that," Aoba stated, turning off and stowing her video camera.

"... Why do you have a nosebleed?" Yamato deadpanned.

"I have a nosebleed?" The heavy cruiser swiped a finger under her nose, taking in the blood. "Huh. So I do."


	381. Rule 1331

**Rule 1331. Chaff is not to be consumed as popcorn or snacks when you're hungry, carriers. The fairy aviators are quite unhappy about the diminishing stock.**

 **AN: Guess who's back... back again... Hornet's back... tell a friend...  
**  
Fairies were one of the many enduring mysteries of shipgirl existence. Miniature people, they piloted aircraft, managed systems within shipgirls, and, though few knew this, were responsible for restocking shipgirls with munitions.

They could also resize full-sized items for easier transports, but that was a well-known phenomenon. Apparently, two physicists had committed suicide trying to figure out how that worked.

The fairies in question for our little tale are a quartet from Taiho, braving the depths of the ammunition storage warehouses in order to find some chaff. They were moving in a simple column, the lead fairy probing the darkness with her flashlight.

"Desu." (This place is scary...) said one of the fairies, huddled in the middle of the formation.

"Desu desu." (Yes, well, it's the only other place where we might find some chaff.) replied the fairy in front of her.

"Desu!" (But it's scary!)

"Desu!" (Both of you, shut up!) the lead fairy snapped.

Silence fell, for all of two seconds before the trailing fairy brought up what was on all of their minds.

"Desu... desu desu?" (So, seriously, why is finding some chaff so hard)? she wondered. "Desu desu desu." (I mean, it's not like it's hard to make, especially against Abyssal radars.)

"Desu desu desu." (Don't know, don't care, let's just get some and get out of here.) the lead fairy countered.

Silent, the fairies turned around a box of machine gun ammo, and beheld the sight of one last box of chaff - mere seconds before a large hand reached down and plucked it away.

"DEEEEESU!" (After that... person!) the lead fairy shouted, all four charging into a position to where they could see the thief.

"Desu... desu desu." (Y'know... we probably should've seen this coming.) one of them deadpanned as Akagi walked away, munching on strands of chaff like popcorn.

~o~

Akagi hummed happily as she closed the door to her room, box of chaff nestled in one arm. So tasty! And good for her plane regeneration, too! She continued to hum as she hopped and skipped down to the archery range. Placing the box in her locker, she retrieved her bow, opened the door to the range - and was immediately greeted by all six of Yokosuka's other carriers staring at her with varying degrees of aggravation.

Kaga's brows were drawn into a tight scowl. Hiryuu's teeth were gritted, her hands trembling at her sides. Shokaku had a look of disapproval on her face even as she laid a calming hand on Zuikaku's shoulder, as the other crane looked ready to start spitting fire. Soryuu had a look of parental disappointment. And Taiho...

Well. Her smile was unnervingly fake, nowhere close to the genuine smile she showed from time to time.

"Uh, hi girls..." Akagi said nervously. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Zuikaku parroted, her voice tight with anger and incredulous disbelief. "What's up?! You wanna know what's up?! We don't have any chaff, because a certain battle-"

That was as far as the crane got before Shokaku locked her up by the neck, cutting off her air. In the absence of Zuikaku, Soryuu stepped up.

"Akagi, you need to stop eating our chaff supplies," she said in a conciliatory tone, ignoring Zuikaku's choked flailing behind her. "We kind of need it for our operations."

If Soryuu expected any kind of response other than the pained whimper she got, she was disappointed. Akagi's head was swiveling around like a spooked deer, searching for any avenue of escape. Finally, Kaga sighed, breaking the tense silence.

"Akagi, unless you promise to stop eating the chaff, I won't..." The fleet carrier paused, sent a pointed look to the carriers behind her, and then leaned in and whispered something in Akagi's ear. To the surprise and confusion of the watching carrier's, Akagi immediately flushed red, her eyes wide and steam whistling out of her ears. After a few moments, Kaga stepped back, a smile on her face.

"So, what do you say?"

"I promise!" Akagi said with far too much enthusiasm.

That was good enough for the carriers, and they quickly dispersed. Taiho was the last one out. As she passed by Akagi, she too leaned in to whisper something.

"Good thing you took Kaga's offer," she whispered, her voice dripping with malice. "I wouldn't have been so nice."

Akagi shivered, and then whirled around, for a moment seeing rotten eyes and a sharp-toothed grin on Taiho's face. Then the moment passed, and her usual impassive expression was back.

"Okay, now I'm definitely not eating any more chaff," she muttered, turning back to her archery practice.


	382. Rule 1340

**Rule 1340. All ship girls must pass a driving safety course if they wish to use base vehicles from now on.  
**  
Admiral Holloway - who was internally thinking that he really should just stick this duty on a hapless new captain in the future - stared at the wrecked Humvee buried halfway through a large tree sitting in the middle of a large intersection in one of San Diego's suburbs. From the plaque at the bottom, it was a heritage tree, which meant it was old, held community significance, and thus was rather high on the "DO NOT TOUCH! EVER!" list.

Turning slightly, he stared at New Jersey, who had the good sense to keep her mouth shut. Another slight turn revealed a bright red vintage Camaro with everything in front of the windshield just... missing, he owner leaning catatonic against it. Completing the half-turn, he beheld a single city block with a demolished fire hydrant, several banged-up cars parked on the side of the road, a very frightened mother and child, lots of skid marks - oh, and a lamp pole had just fallen down.

Finishing the turn brought him to a resigned-looking ensign.

"Remind me," he said, his voice colder than the vacuum of space. "Does New Jersey have a driver's license?"

"No, sir," the ensign sullenly replied.

"Then why, in the name of all that is holy and sacred, did you let her drive?!"

"It was one block!" the ensign protested, throwing up his hands. "I just let her have the wheel for one block! I even told her to leave it in idle! One block, at idle, down a straight city road!"

"Uh, Admiral..."

"Shut up," Holloway growled to New Jersey. "You're not out of the woods, either."

"Shutting up."

Turning back to the wrecked Humvee, Holloway sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Alright, if I have to make it a blanket rule, I will," he stated. "From now on, no shipgirl is driving anything from the motor pool until they pass a driver's safety course. And yes, this is going on The List." He frowned; New Jersey was making her hidey-face again. "What?"

"Wellll..." she hedged. "Y'know that M1 we've got parked on base?"

~o~

"Drive me closer!" Johnston shouted happily, waving a tomahawk she'd somehow gotten her hands on. "I want to hit them with my tomahawk!"

"Who's even driving that thing?!" Pensacola wailed as the tank chased after her.

~o~

"Yeah, we might want to get back soon," the battleship chuckled. "Who knows what those little rugrats have gotten up to with it?"

~o~

"So, what's that?" Akagi asked as Kirishima showed her through Yokosuka's motor pool. The battleship followed the carrier's gaze to a half-stripped Humvee sitting on a raised platform.

"That's a parts hulk for our other Humvees," she answered, before pulling out a small fan and smacking Akagi on the forehead with it. "And it's not for eating, even if it looks abandoned."

"Hey, how do you even know I wanted to eat that?!" Akagi demanded.

Kirishima smirked, adjusted her glasses, and began to stride out. "Next time, try not to drool when you see a lot of aluminum."


	383. Rule 1341

**Rule 1341. We don't want to reiterate this again. Biological engineering is forbidden.  
**  
It was just another day in Yokosuka, which meant that the human personnel were braced for shenanigans and the shipgirls blissfully went about their business. Bets were passed around on what sort of weirdness the base would produce. And for most of the morning, it looked like those who had bet on the long shot of "nothing" were going to win the pot.

"Hey, has anyone seen Tenryuu?"

Of course, as Naka mused, clearly none of them knew about Ikazuchi making rounds around the base with that question, otherwise the stated odds would be very different.

"Nein. Sorry, Ikazuchi," Yakumo answered.

"I did see her head out onto the water this morning," Ashigara offered. "But that was hours ago; who knows where she's gotten since."

"Oh, come on!" the destroyer cried out, throwing her hands in the air. "Well, thanks for the help, guys. I'll keep looking; she better hope Tatsuta finds her, because if I do..."

Naka raised an eyebrow. Well now.

"Well, maybe we can help," Ashigara offered.

"Hey, you wanna reconcile Inazuma and Hibiki, be my guest," Ikazuchi offered. "Just remember to keep an asbestos suit handy."

The two cruisers exchanged confused looks, but Ikazuchi didn't elaborate, and they didn't ask her to as she left, heading for the waterfront. Naka crept after her, certain that something interesting was going to happen and thanking Sendai for her lessons in stealth.

Sadly, Ikazuchi didn't do anything interesting once she was at the water, merely chucking stones and shouting invectives that made Naka wonder what the heck Tenryuu was letting her destroyers watch. However, after a few minutes, the light cruiser noticed something in the distance.

"What the heck..." she muttered, shading her eyes with her hand.

The dot in the sky slowly but surely came closer, and it wasn't long before she also noticed the pair of F-15Js circling the dot. And then it got close enough for Naka to see it with her antiaircraft fire control, and her eyes widened.

"What the hell?" she quietly yelped. "Is that a fucking dragon?!"

And indeed, as the dot came closer and closer, it was, in fact, a fucking dragon. And riding on the back of it was Tenryuu, wearing the biggest grin on her face. Finally, the dragon landed, green with a long muzzle, two batlike wings, and twin horns sweeping back from its head.

"Hey, squirt!" Tenryuu said to Ikazuchi as she hopped off the dragon's back. "Meet Franz!"

"Wow..." Ikazuchi breathed, her eyes glittering with stars. "This is so awesome."

"It's good to meet you, Ikazuchi," the dragon stated in a voice like a gravel avalanche. "Mama wouldn't stop talking about you and your sisters and how we're all going to get along."

Silence fell on the dock, Tenryuu blushing and looking away.

"MAMA?!" Ikazuchi and Naka eventually yelled - only for Franz, Tenryuu, and Ikazuchi to stare at the light cruiser.

"Aheheh... hi?" she said nervously.

~o~

"A dragon," Admiral Goto deadpanned.

"Yup," Naka replied, smoke rising from her scorched hair and clothes. "Where she found it, I don't know."

"Well, considering his name is 'Franz', we called up Gneisenau," Yuubari explained. "She was very embarrassed that an experiment she'd discarded as a failure had actually succeeded."

"And... it calls Tenryuu 'mama'," Goto continued, his face ashen. "I... don't suppose I could convince her to let him go?"

Naka, her face scrunched up in distaste, tossed the ashen remains of her scarf into the nearest trash can. "I wouldn't try."

"Right, I guess the dragon stays," Goto sighed. "And I cannot believe I just said that in all seriousness."


	384. Rule 1343

**Rule 1343: Please avoid mentioning 'diet' to Akagi, unless it's an intervention.  
**  
"Soda is here!" Zuikaku announced, dropping a cooler bigger than her onto the sand.

The First Air Fleet had, during a rare period of sustained downtime, elected to make a beach trip down to the Izu coast. New swimsuits had been bought, supplies had been stockpiled, and a first aid kit had been assembled for the spate of male injuries everyone by now expected. Zuikaku had a bit of an ulterior motive, though: she wanted assurance that her build was the norm. The other five carriers did not fit the 'flight deck chest' archetype, after all.

And now she had it, as well as large cooler for soda. "I've got Coca-Cola, Sprite, Ramune, Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper-"

"Oh! I'll take a Dr. Pepper!" Akagi called out.

Nodding, Zuikaku plucked a can out of the ice chest and tossed it to the fleet carrier to catch, the motion causing... interesting jiggles.

And for once, I'm not talking about her breasts.

Hiryuu - Soryu, Shokaku, and Kaga were off in the water - glanced at Akagi's stomach, frowning. Akagi, for her part, blissfully chugged down the Dr. Pepper, before taking a large bite out of the can.

"Oh, sooooo gooooood..."

"Yo, Hiryuu, you want a soda or not?"

"Uh, a Sprite, please," she replied, catching the throne can. "Neh, Akagi, you sure you haven't gained weight?"

"Uh, no? Why?"

Slowly, Hiryuu reached out and poked at Akagi's belly. It went in, but little more. "Maybe I imagined that..." the flying dragon muttered. "Yo, Zui, toss her another can!"

The can came sailing in, Akagi caught it - and her belly jiggled as her body absorbed the impact.

"Oh, fuck, I didn't imagine it," Hiryuu groaned. "Akagi, I think you need to go on a diet."

Akagi froze, Dr. Pepper dribbling out of the can and onto her breasts. Zuikaku froze, bent over with her hand retrieving another can. Kaga, Soryuu, and Shokaku froze, coming out of the water, the waves lapping at their knees.

80% of the guys in visual range stopped, mostly due to suddenly having all their blood flow to one spot.

"Di... et...?" Akagi repeated.

"Hiryuu, you idiot!" Zuikaku groaned, slapping her face. "Never use the 'd' word near Akagi!"

"Wha- Why-"

"AAAAAAAHHHH!"

Hiryuu reeled back from the converted battlecruiser, who had, in the space of two seconds, screamed, collapsed, and curled up into a fetal position, sucking her thumb.

"Great," Zuikaku groused, throwing up her hands. "Kaga, what do we need?"

The other carrier hummed, tapping her chin. "Two cakes, four Klondikes, and the biggest American cheeseburger with fries you can find," she said.

"I'm on it."


	385. Rule 1345

**Rule 1345. The tails of the Allied Re-class Cruisers do not have minds of their own, stop treating them like their puppies.  
**  
It all started with a curious destroyer. Yuudachi was walking down the halls, humming cheerfully to herself, when she spotted a Re-class battleship talking animatedly to Hyuuga. Yes, talking, not shooting, for this was one of the Allied Abyssals, more specifically the one that had joined up after the White Menace incident. Her face scrunched up in an adorable pout at the memory; of all the times to be out at sea!

Regardless, Yuudachi's attention was not on the ongoing conversation between the two battlewagons, and instead of the Re-class' tail. It was wagging back and forth, seemingly of its own accord, with its tongue lolling out. In all, it looked like a rather adorable puppy.

The twin tufts of hair on the destroyer's head twitched at that thought, and she slowly crept towards the Re-class battleship. So engrossed was the Abyssal in conversation that she didn't notice Yuudachi, even as she came to a stop six inches from the tail. The tail, on the other hand, did notice, and turned to face Yuudachi, managing to look confused.

[- and then I fired my guns in her face and smashed her pelvis into her bladder!]

The urge became too much, and Yuudachi's hand shot out, stroking the head of the Re's tail. Said tail shuddered, and seemed to melt under the touch.

[Haaaauuuu!]

Of course, it wasn't the only part of the Abyssal that shuddered.

[W-W-W-What are you doing?!] the Re demanded, whirling around and pulling the tail away from Yuudachi in the process. A dusting of red decorated her cheeks as she clutched the organ. [Y-Y-Y-You can't just t- _touch_ a maiden's tail like that!]

"Maiden?" Hyuuga remarked, one brunette eyebrow cocked.

[You know what I mean!] Turning her embarrassed glare back on the destroyer, she waved her hand in a shooing motion. [Now go away, you little rugrat!]

Yuudachi's only reaction was to tilt her head to the side, accompanied by one word.

"Poi?"

~o~

A week later found Yuudachi in the Marquesas Islands, part of an escort force deployed to take the handoff of a convoy going along the southern route from the Americans. Also there was Re-chan, one of the first allied Abyssals, who had largely gone native in the island chain. Her skin tanned to a healthy brown, only her hooved legs and her tail gave any sign that she was an Abyssal.

And it was that tail that Yuudachi focused on. Would it react the same way? As the slow merchantmen crossed the gap between the two forces, the destroyer steamed up to Re-chan.

[Oh, hey, Yuudachi,] the Abyssal greeted. [What's u-]

"Pooooi."

The greeting was cut short by Yuudachi reaching out and not only stroking, but scratching her tail's head. The destroyer watched, fascinated, as the appendage once again shuddered and seemed to melt under the touch. And once again, the action provoked a reaction from the Abyssal herself.

[Yipe!] Re-chan yelped, shooting ramrod straight - and then relaxing in an... oddly sensual manner. Once again, the tail was plucked out of Yuudachi's hands, but this time, when the Abyssal turned around to look at her, it wasn't with embarrassment, but with undisguised _lust_.

 _'Oh, crap.'  
_  
Slowly, Yuudachi took a step back, but it was too late. Re-chan darted forward, wrapping her arms around Yuudachi to pull her close and running a finger down her cheek.

[My, so forward, Yuudachi-chan,] she crooned. [All you had to do was... ask.]

Yuudachi's already nervous expression collapsed into outright panic at that, and she sucked in a breath, screaming, "HELP! BAD TOUCH, BAD TOUCH! I NEED AN ADULT!"

[Oh, but I am an adult, Yuudachi-chan,] Re-chan seductively replied.

Somehow, that wasn't comforting at all, and only the timely intervention of Kirishima prevented a disaster.

~o~

After that, Yuudachi swore off any more petting of Abyssal tails, and in any case wasn't crazy enough to try it on the third Allied Re-class. Well, not really allied, more like "in a non-agression treaty".

After all, WReck still had a bone to pick with the US Navy for the Kentucky fiasco.

Unfortunately, while Yuudachi wasn't crazy enough to try stroking WReck's tail, she told someone who was: Kagero. Which brings us to our current scene, with WReck and Kiso lying on a beach, panting heavily and covered in minor to moderate injuries, a chunk of the Yokosuka base burning behind them from WReck's rampage.

[Heh...] the Abyssal chuckled in between gulps of air. [Not bad... and here I had... you pegged as... a discount Tenryuu...]

"I hope... you've revised... that opinion..." Kiso replied. "'Cause as much... as I'd like... to kick your fucking ass... for that remark... I don't think... I can... move..."

[Same... 'least I'm not... mad anymore...]

"Heh... I saw what you did to Kagero. Hopefully Kinu got that."

[She has my sympathies if she has to deal with that bag of cats on a regular basis.]

The two lapsed into a companionable silence, feelings of rage and inferiority temporarily expended.

"Hey," Kiso said after a few more minutes. "You wanna do this again sometime?"

[... Sure.]


	386. Rule 1347

**Rule 1347.** ** _NEVER_** **threaten to take away Tenryuu's destroyers.  
**  
As usual, Admiral Goto's office was a sanctuary of calm in the chaos of managing a shipgirl fleet. The only sounds, not audible from outside its walls, even with the window open, was the whirring of his computer and the usual clicking and tapping that accompanied any time on a computer. Email files flashed before his eyes, the important ones marked and the unimportant ones mass-selected and ruthlessly dumped in the trash. However, as he scrolled through the current page of emails, one in particular caught his eye.

"'Adoption papers'? What?" Frowning, he clicked open the email, noting that it had been forwarded from Tenryuu. A fond smile crept over his face, warm pride in his chest, as he read the message. Tenryuu's relationship with her destroyers always warmed her heart, though he did make a mental note to look into postwar plans for all the destroyers. Not all of them would be mature enough, even then, to enter society on their own.

However, the last line murdered that warm feeling in his heart and replaced it with a lump of ice.

Standing up, he poked his out into the outer office, where Ooyodo was doing her own work.

"Admiral?" she asked with just a smidge of worry.

"Could you post someone with... maturity on Tenryuu and Tatsuta?" he said, his voice wobbling just a tad. "Tenryuu's meeting with a social worker for adopting Desdiv 6, and..."

The secretary ship frowned as Goto trailed off, looking pained. "Sir? What's wrong with her meeting a social worker?"

"Hopefully? Nothing," he replied, shuddering. "But I've heard too many horror stories to be sure of that."

Though she quirked an eyebrow, Ooyodo tapped out a quick message. "There. Nachi should be on her way," she said.

Nodding, Admiral Goto ducked back into his office, and the light cruiser returned to her work. On a whim, she decided to open up a Google search. It couldn't be that bad, could it?

Ten minutes of searching later convinced her otherwise. Yes. Yes it could get that bad.

~o~

"So?" Tenryuu said, grinning desperately as she finished explaining her postwar plans for the girls to the social worker. The rather severe woman, most likely in her fifties, had barely said a word besides a few clarifying questions, and without any real way to gauge her the light cruiser was sweating bullets.

"After reviewing the facts," the woman stated. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to reject the application."

The lump in Tenryuu's stomach that had sat there the whole time vanished, replaced by a gaping hole. Her ears rang in a chorus of tinnitus, and her vision swam as if she was underwater. "What?"

"A woman who lets children into battle - encourages them, even! - is not fit to raise them," the social worker archly explained. "And in truth, they should not even be on the battlefield in the first place! I had read the news reports, but to see it myself... shameful. Utterly shameful that we let _children_ fight our battles for us. I shall be-"

Tenryuu tuned out the rest of the rant - and yes, it was a rant, despite the calm, polite tone - as white-hot rage coursed through her. Insulting her ability to take care of her destroyers was one thing, but to attack their very reason to exist? That was too much!

The light cruiser found herself standing, her mouth a thin line and her brows drawn tightly together.

"- you can be sure of that," the social worker finished, before giving an unimpressed look. "Miss Tenryuu, I know this is upsetting, but-"

That was as far as she got before Tenryuu reached out and grabbed her by the throat, the woman gagging under the literally steel-solid grip.

"Upset?" Tenryuu growled, steam wafting out from her jaws. "Oh, we left upset a long time ago. I am fucking _pissed_. Telling me I can't raise my- my children? I can take that. Telling me they should be pulled out of combat. Newsflash, lady, these aren't normal children. These are shipgirls, and fighting is in their _blood_."

Despite the lack of oxygen, the social worker nonetheless had the wherewithall to sneer.

"Ah, that face. I know that face," Tenryuu sneered right back. "You think you've won, don't you? That you can paint me as a violent maniac now? Well, too bad for you." The light cruiser looked up at something behind her. "I'm not handling your punishment today."

The hand letting go, the social worker collapsed to the ground, taking deep heaving breaths and clutching her bruised neck. Something blocked out the light, and she glanced up to see an angel standing over her. An angel with a smile that was sweet and yet utterly terrifying.

"Hi! You can call me Aunty Tatsuta."

Nachi heard the screams from half the base away.

~o~

"Well," Admiral Goto sighed. "Under the circumstances, I'm going to let this one slide, and then I'm going to complain upstairs. God, we need to clean up social services in this country."

"Mm, better not let the media hear you say that, Admiral," Tatsuta remarked.

"And don't I know it," the Admiral grumbled. "So, do I want to know what you did to her, Tatsuta?"

"Of course not, Admiral."


	387. Rule 1354

**Rule 1354. We're not even going to ask how she did it, but getting another ship-girl pregnant is Forbidden, interdit, proibito, verbotten and any other way of saying it isn't allowed during wartime.  
**  
It was a little-known fact that shipgirls didn't actually need to sleep. This was mostly because people were stupid sheep who didn't stop to think for ten seconds about how shipgirls could deploy for a week straight without collapsing into snores like a human would in that position. Though, in all fairness, the fact that they _did_ sleep and in fact liked to sleep complicated the matter quite a bit.

All of which meant that Enterprise was quite grumpy when she woke up to a cooling bed.

"Yammy...?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

The dulcet tones of retching wafted over to her from the bathroom, immediately shaking any drowsiness away.

"Oh no," Enterprise breathed, immediately getting up and making her way over to where her girlfriend was worshipping the porcelain throne, placing a comforting hand on her back. "Again?"

"I-It's worse this time," Yamato moaned, wiping her mouth. "I-I, Yamato, think it's time to go talk to Akashi."

"Right," Enterprise agreed, helping her girlfriend to her feet. "Ugh, have you put on weight?"

*SMACK!*

"Don't even joke about that!"

"Ow, my head..."

~o~

Fifteen minutes later, the two shipgirls were ensconced in Akashi's workshop, the repair ship off doing... something, and trying their hardest not to fidget. Finally, she stepped out, her expression unreadable.

"Well, congrats," she announced. "I don't know how you fucking did it, but Yamato's pregnant."

There was a moment. A moment in which the only thing the two ships could hear was their feed pumps, roaring far louder than they should've been capable of. And then...

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?!"

"How- buh- WHAT THE FUCK?!"

"Yeah, that was kinda my reaction, too," Akashi replied, rubbing her ears. "You're about... two and a half months in, as far as I can tell, so the morning sickness should pass soon."

When she got no response, Akashi frowned and waved her hand in front of Yamato's face, getting not even an eye movement. Enterprise was the same way.

"Crap, I think I broke them," she groused.

"Did someone say that Yamato's pregnant?" Yuubari suddenly shouted as she skidded in front of the door.

"Inquiring minds want to know!" Yuubari added.

"God save me from overenthusiastic mad scientists," Akashi muttered, kneading her forehead.

~o~

As it does with military gossip, news of Yamato's pregnancy spread like wildfire, until by lunch everyone knew. Despite that, there were few whispers when the couple in question arrived. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for two others to arrive.

To everyone's relief, Kongo was first.

"CON-GRAT-U-LATIONS!" she announced, slapping Yamato on the shoulder. "I'm sure you're going to be a great mother!"

"T-Thanks," the battleship stammered, blushing.

"You're welcome! And now, I must go! Teitoku awaits!"

Spinning up into a full category 5 love hurricane, Kongo swept out of the mess, everyone present sending a silent prayer for Admiral Goto's hipbones. They had barely finished when the _other_ expected shipgirl showed up.

"ENTERPRISE!" Musashi roared, announcing her presence by throwing the doors off their hinges.

"Oh Jesus no," the carrier groaned.

Sadly, as she was already stuck in line for food, there was no escape, and in seconds she found herself staring over the twin peaks of Mount Musashi into the battleship's eyes.

"Sister, I-" Yamato began, before falling silent at a raised hand.

"Enterprise," Musashi said, her voice grave. "Do you swear that you did not intend to get my sister pregnant?"

"I didn't think it was possible!" the carrier protested.

Musashi nodded. "Fair. Do you swear to take care of her and the child, however you can?"

"Of course!"

Another nod. "And do you swear to take your own turn with child?"

Enterprise opened her mouth, closed it, and then raised a finger. "Can I take a mulligan on that one?"

"Certainly," Musashi nodded, holding out her hand. "Good talk."

"Likewise," Enterprise replied.


	388. Rule 1357

**Rule 1357. Sendai isn't allowed to read good-night stories to destroyers any more.  
**  
Even as the United States spread the word of the good lords Bofors, Oerlikon, and Mk. 37, so too were other countries reciprocating. The Germans loaned some of their submarines, freeing American fleet boats for deep-water operations and teaching the less experienced boats. The Brits offered ASW lessons to those destroyers that needed it; not everyone had spent their war fighting of wolfpacks in the North Atlantic. And Japan? Japan offered instructors in night fighting. Though the US Navy had a hard core of cruisers and destroyers that could hang with the British and Japanese in that sort of fight, those skills had not disseminated to the general fleet despite attempts to do so.

All of which found Sendai in San Diego, walking the halls just in time to see a frazzled New Jersey throw open a door as she was walking by.

"Alright, then you can stay up, you little rugrats!" she shouted back into the room before slamming the door shut. That done, she slumped against the wall, hand at her face. "Christ..."

"Destroyer trouble?" Sendai asked.

New Jersey looked up at her, putting on a brittle smile. "Taffy 3," she explained. "Heermann and Johnston don't want to go to sleep, and Hoel can't sleep if those two are awake."

"Quite the problem," Sendai agreed, looking contemplatively at the door. "Mind if I give it a try?"

"Sure, what the hell," New Jersey said. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me."

Nodding, Sendai opened the door and stepped in, seeing the three destroyers hopping up on their beds and throwing their pillows willy-nilly.

"Girls!" Sendai announced. "It's time for bed!"

The only reply she got was from Johnston, who stuck her tongue out at her. "Nyaaaaah!"

"I've got a story for you!" Sendai added.

The destroyers stopped, and glanced between each other. "This isn't gonna be one of those stupid, childish stories like Goodnight Moon or something, right?" Heermann asked suspiciously.

"Of course not!" Sendai chirped. "It's a good one!"

The destroyers glanced between each other again, and then all scrambled into their beds, looking as innocent as can be.

"So, story?" Johnston prompted.

Sendai grinned. "Let me tell you about Yukio Miki..."

~o~

"And to this day, she haunts the underdark... except on those rare occasions when a child reminds her of her brother," Sendai continued, her voice deep and reverberating. "And then, she appears beneath their bed. Waiting. just waiting for a... handhold."

Heermann and Hoel were shaking in their beds, the latter having already dived beneath the covers. And despite her brave grin, Johnston was shaking almost as badly.

"Y-You're t-trying to s-scare us!" the destroyer accused. "W-Well, it's not gonna w-work! T-That story can't be r-real!"

"Oh?" Sendai replied, her grin widening to demented proportions. "Look below you."

Scrunching her mouth, Johnston didn't move.

"I said _look below you."  
_  
The destroyer flinched, and looked down to see a mop of stringy black hair sticking out from under her bed, joined by a mottled, pale arm, small chunks of skin missing. And then it turned to look at her with a jaundiced, bloodshot, hair-framed eye.

"IYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

And that was the last straw. All three destroyers fainted dead away. Relaxing, Sendai sent a thumbs up to the henge'd shadow clone she'd parked under Johnston's bed and dismissed it, before standing and properly tucking in all three. That done, she opened the door - and came face to face with a still-tired but now pissed-off New Jersey.

 _'Maybe I didn't think my cunning plan through,'_ Sendai thought.

"What the _hell_ kind of a story did you tell my destroyers?!" she demanded.

 _'Definitely didn't think it through. Time to improvise.'_

~o~

Wisconsin knocked again at New Jersey's door, and once again she got no answer. Frowning, she tried the doorknob, finding it unlocked. Now she was confronted with a dilemma. Was her sister's newly refurbished laptop really worth breaking her privacy? On the other hand, her door was unlocked, she wasn't answering the knocks, and there was no sock on the doorknob. She'd learned what _that_ meant the hard way with Iowa.

Finally, she made a decision. "I'm coming in!" she announced, opening the door. The sight that greeted her was _not_ what she expected. There was Sendai in sarashi and panties, pulling up the stocking she wore on her right leg. There was New Jersey lying naked on her bed, still asleep, with the bedclothes strewn every which way. And then there was the smell, the same smell that had hung in the air that time with Iowa.

"Uh, hi, Wisconsin," Sendai said, her voice quavering and sweat on her brow.

"I don't even wanna know," the battleship muttered. "If Jersey wakes up, let her know that her computer's finished, okay?"

"O-kay!" Sendai chirped, flashing a V sign.

Nodding, Wisconsin closed the door and resolved not to think about this. Thankfully, a tired, shivering Heermann shuffling towards her was a nice distraction. "You okay, kiddo?"

"The monsters under the bed are real," the destroyer intoned. "And they come out at night."

Both of her eyebrows threatened to shoot up into her head. "What in the world has Jersey been telling you girls?" she muttered. "Hey, why don't you grab your sisters and we can go have hot chocolate. How does that sound?"

That perked the destroyer up, and she quickly nodded and scampered off.


	389. Rule 1360

**Rule 1360. Woe be anyone who touches Graf Zeppelin's Kaffee. She promised to re-enact the 30 Years War on that fool.  
**  
As it was every morning, the German navy base at Wilhelmshaven was visited by a shambling zombie with blond hair. Graf Zeppeling was _not_ a morning person, and many speculated she was the one exception to the whole 'shipgirls don't need to sleep' thing. The only thing that could get her moving was coffee, a personal blend, and lots of it.

The zombie shuffled across Graf Zeppelin's room towards a large cabinet that held the coffee in question, and swung it open. Only cobwebs and a surprised spider greeted it. Frowning and groaning, it reached a hand in and tapped around, finding only wood.

With that, a curious transformation occurred. The zombie was replaced, and a fully awake and very pissed off Graf Zeppelin stood, her fingers carving divots into the wood of the cabinet.

 ** _"WHO DARES?"_** she thundered.

"WHO THE HELL RAIDED MY WORKSHOP?!" came the dulcet tones of Gneisenau across the base a second later.

The rest of the German shipgirls added their cries to the chorus, and Graf's hands clenched at her sides. Someone who could hit the whole base while everyone was sleeping? The number of shipgirls could do that was short, and could be counted on one hand once one discarded the U-boats. After all, they knew better than to touch her coffee.

More importantly, she could sense her coffee across the North Sea. Stomping out of her room, she swept past the gathering of shipgirls on the docks, leaving them shivering.

"Oh, shit," she heard Bismarck groan. "Those idiots took Graf's coffee."

Graf took a step off the docks, and then began speeding towards Britain.

~o~

"Mwahahahaha!" Bedouin cackled in front of her haul, safely ensconced in a Portsmouth warehouse. "I've done it!"

"Impressive," Gurkha conceded. "You've learned well, padawan." Her eyes narrowed at a particular item on the pile. "Wait, where'd you get the coffee?"

"Oh, I nicked it from the carrier's roo-"

"You nicked Graf Zeppelin's coffee?!" Gurkha suddenly yelped, whirling around.

"Uh, yes?"

"Fuck this, you're on your own!" the other Tribal said, before bolting out of the warehouse.

"Okaaaay..." Bedouin remarked, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "What's up with that? It's just coffee."

 _"Yes, but it's_ MINE."

Bedouin froze, and slowly tilted her head back to look up at Graf, her face one of textbook Teutonic stoniness aside from the black mist flowing from her equally black eyes.

 _"Now,"_ the carrier said. _"Turn over the coffee, and the rest of your ill-gotten goods, or I will re-enact the Thirty Years' War on you."  
_  
That broke Bedouin out of her paralysis, and she scoffed. "And how're you gonna do _that_?" she wondered.

 _"Like this."  
_  
Outside, Gurkha winced as Bedouin began screaming, joined by the sound of splintering metal and bone and the squelching of torn flesh in a demented chorus.

 _"My ribs are in my eyes! They're in my eyes!"  
_  
And the worst part of it was? It didn't _stop_.

 _"M-My blood! She punched out all of my blood!"  
_  
Gurkha, like most shipgirls, was an expert in the many ways to break the human-shaped bodies they now inhabited. And by all rights, fifteen minutes in, Bedouin should've been dead.

 _"This is extremely improbable!"  
_  
Yes, Bedouin had the right idea: this was very improbable. Clearly, it had something to do with Graf's coffee-fueled dark power.

 _"Shouldn't I be passing out by now?! Oh God the pain!"  
_  
And faced with the sounds that wouldn't stop, Gurkha did the only thing she could: she passed out.

~o~

"I must say," Resource said. "This is impressive work."

"Somehow I don't think you mean the extent of the damage..." Admiral Cunningham groaned, his face noticeably green.

"No, I mean, this is all fixable," the repair ship stated, tapping the packet she held. "It'll just take a while. Here, I compiled it in-"

"Gah, don't show me that! Too many photos!"

Resource couldn't help but pout at that. She'd worked really hard to get the perfect, super-clear angles on those photos!


	390. Rule 1368

**New** **Rule 1368. Who had the bright idea to tell the U-Boats that destroyers can be distracted by Ice Cream? The harbor of Lübeck is overflowing with Abyssal destroyers who want ice cream!  
**  
"Ah!" U-74 screamed as a depth charge nearly turned her organs into mashed potatoes. "Bad time bad time bad time!"

"I don't wanna be mashed potatoes!" U-83 helpfully added.

"Don't worry!" U-55 assured them. "I have a secret weapon!"

"Well, use it already!" the other two U-boats shouted.

"Alright, alright," U-55 muttered, blowing her ballast and surfacing. The Abyssal destroyers that had been hounding them were close, very close, and they immediately aimed their guns at her. Still, the submarine wasn't afraid. Reaching into her limited cargo space, she produced a gallon tub of ice cream precariously balanced on her palm.

"You like?" she taunted, waving the ice cream back and forth. To her relief, the Abyssals followed the movement, not bothering to fire. "Go fetch!" And with that, she reared her arm back and hurled the tub as far as she could, which was quite far. The Abyssals immediately bolted off in pursuit, barking an odd battle cry.

"Mine!"

"Mine!"

"Minemineminemineminemineminemine!"

Nodding, U-55 ducked back under water. "We need to go. That won't hold them for long, and there are probably reinforcements on the way."

U-83 and U-74 nodded and followed the submarine as they headed for Wilhelmshaven.

~o~

The next day, the city of Lübeck was treated to a most unusual and terrifying sight: over _five hundred_ Abyssal destroyers crowding the harbor.

"Mineminemineminemineminemine!"

Fighters had been scrambled, the shipgirls had been mobilized - and then, in defiance of all expectations, the Abyssals had struck not at the naval base, but the city itself, swarming through the streets and mostly ignoring the buildings and citizens.

"Ugh, house fighting," Z9 Theodore Zenker grumbled as she and Z6 Theodore Riedel ran towards the nearest identified clump of Abyssals. "I hate house fighting."

"I know," the other destroyer agreed. "This is like Copenhagen all over again."

Zenker gave her sister an odd look. "You and I remember Copenhagen very differently."

There was no time for more banter as the German tin cans crossed a corner, finding four Abyssals tearing apart a-

"That is an ice cream shop," Riedel remarked, perhaps unnecessarily.

"Yes, it is," Zenker agreed.

The pair glanced at each other, then shrugged and fired off their guns, the 5" shells plowing into the Abyssals at point-blank range and exploding. The two survivors, instead of counterattacking, protectively huddled over the ice cream. That didn't stop the destroyers from finishing off the Abyssals - and then nicking whatever ice cream was intact for a snack.

The scene repeated itself all across the city, in grocery stores, ice cream shops, and convenience stores: shipgirls or fighters coming across small knots of Abyssal destroyers gorging themselves on ice cream.

And, watching this all on the news, was U-55, who looked distinctly green.

"So much for my secret weapon," she muttered.


	391. Rule 1373

**Rule 1373. Cans of Spam may not be used as weapons. No matter how much the Abyssals hate them.  
**  
[Success!] an Abyssal Ri-class heavy cruiser whooped as the small cargo ship they'd just cornered threw up a white flag. [Alright, time for looting!]

One of her classmates nodded, grinning eagerly, and the two clambered up the sides and began tearing open the containers. Toys, video games and consoles, computers, stuffed animals, all were tossed down to a waiting transport for their fellow Abyssals. The crew bustled into the lifeboats and left, the twin heavy cruisers letting them go. The small crew was of no interest to them.

However, of particular interest were several containers filled with food. Most of it was bulk grains, but there were several refrigerated containers full of citrus fruit, which the cruisers happily devoured. The container filled with nothing but Danish shortbread cookies, of all things, was also consumed. Finally, they opened up one last container, only for a bunch of cans to spill out onto the deck.

[Huh,] the second Ri-class said, kneeling down and picking up a can to examine. [Spam...?]

[Well, is it edible or not?] the first Ri-clas griped.

[Let's find out...] And with that, the cruiser opened her mouth and bit through the can, chewing on the metal and spam. Her face twisted up, and she promptly spat it out with a loud 'Blagh!'

[Well, it's _technically_ edible...] she hedged.

The first Ri dubiously eyed the spit-soaked glob of Spam and metal sliding down the side of the container, and picked up a can herself, biting into it. A wave of sweet and salt hit her in a rather unpleasant dissonance, and she spat out the bit, the offending can clinking onto the deck with its earlier companion.

[Very technically,] she groused. [Forget that, let's see what else is there and then blow this taco stand.]

As the Abyssals went back to their looting, none of them noticed Balao watching their every move from the surface nearby.

"Well, now, isn't that interesting?" she muttered.

~o~

Several days later, a pair of Ta-class battleships were advancing on an American cruiser-destroyer group that scouts had identified, accompanied by a whole mess of destroyers. Naturally, there were... complications.

[I'm so hungry...] one of the Tas groaned, clutching her stomach.

[You know what the lewdmarines have been doing to the transports,] the other Ta remarked. [Though, yeah, this sucks. Hey, maybe we'll find something to eat on the way!]

[Yeah, what are the odds of-]

The two battleships froze, their escorts bumping into their legs and looking around in confusion. There, floating on the water were a pair of cans that read 'SPAM' on the front, as well as a picture that looked like some sort of ham.

[MINE!] both of them barked, diving for the cans and swallowing them whole. Then the flavors hit their tongues, and their faces immediately scrunched up in disgust.

[Blargh!] they both spat, drifting towards each other. [Ugh, that was awful!]

A whistling sound caught their attention, and they glanced up to see a large number of black dots heading towards them.

[... Please tell me those aren't what I think they are,] one of the Tas groaned.

[Considering that looks like a lot of 2000-lb bombs, I don't think I can say that. Sorry.]

Rocket engines added their roar to the din, and they glanced down to see missiles streaking at them over the waves.

[Aw, this is gonna su-]

The amount of ordnance that landed in the rather small killbox both battleships in would have leveled a small city. Against two tough but much smaller battleships, it turned them into so much polluted chum for the sharks.

"Success!" Boston whooped from fifteen miles away, pumping her fist. She was promptly smacked upside the head by Honolulu.

"Don't waste Spam like that!"


	392. Rule 1377

**Rule 1377. Never question how the Liberty girls carry their cargo. That way lay madness.  
**  
"Day 1 of my observations," South Dakota stated, tapping her pencil against the notepad she carried. The battleship was hidden behind a large bush, training binoculars on the cargo port where a trio of Liberty ships were climbing up onto the cargo handling areas. "The Liberty Ships should soon be disembarking their cargo."

Adjusting her pith hat, she continued to watch as the cargo shipgirls reached into the pockets their voluminous raincoats, and began pulling out cargo containers. There was no visible size transition between a full-size container and something that could actually _fit_ in said pockets.

"As expected, offloading works much like ours does," the battleship continued, noting the rather... green faces of the dockworkers. "Human reactions are the same, too."

The offloading continued, but as she watched, another pair of Liberty ships trotted up and began inspecting another stack of containers.

"Oh! Opportunity!" South Dakota breathed. "It looks like two more members will be loading their holds. This is an opportunity..."

Off in the distance, the two Liberty Ships nodded, and then their rigging flashed to life. Twin cargo winches latched onto the containers, lifting them up, and right before her eyes South Dakota watched the containers shrink down to a manageable size.

"Also as expected," the battleship continued as the Liberty ships dropped the containers into their pockets. "Cargo loading works in much the same way as ours, as well, just scaled up."

Putting down her binoculars, South Dakota stood and crept off.

"Moving to phase 2," she stated.

~o~

Medusa and Phoenix both stared at the prone form of South Dakota, placed on her back. Her exposed skin was an unhealthy shade of blue, her eyes were bloodshot and frozen wide open with dilated pupils, and her arms were locked into a bent position, the hands stiff claws.

"Sooo... do you have any idea what happened to her?" Medusa asked the light cruiser. "'Cause I've got nothing."

"I have no idea," Phoenix admitted. "Though this is way out of my area of expertise."

Medusa gave South Dakota's prone form a hearty kick in the side, to no effect, and then turned to the shipgirl who had brought her in. "And she was in your cargo hold?"

"Yup," SS Knute Rockney answered. "She was in some coffin thing that got onto the cargo manifest. Don't know what she was doing there."

"Well, at least she left research notes, as usual," Phoenix muttered as she grabbed a notebook off a nearby table. "Let's see... 'observations'... 'Liberty ships'... 'phase 2'..." Swearing violently, Phoenix chucked the report against the wall. "That fucking idiot! She was researching your cargo carrying!"

The sound of Knute Rockney slapping her forehead echoed through the room as Medusa's brows furrowed in confusion. "Wait, how would that-"

"Medusa," the Liberty ship interrupted. "Three different physicists committed suicide trying to figure out how our cargo handling works. South Dakota must've put herself in my hold for a reason, and as a shipgirl herself that leads to... complications."

"Okay..." Medusa drew out, glancing back down at South Dakota. "Alright, I'll get her started on a regimen of chocolate and cat videos. Hopefully that'll work.


	393. Rule 1381

**Rule 1381. It is not funny to tell the Escort Carriers that if they can defeat a Fleet Carrier they can become Fleet Carriers too.  
**  
"Why are you both in a broom closet?" USS Hornet, CV-12, asked over the Facetime webcam she was connected to.

 _"Escort carriers,"_ Ranger and Wasp chorused simultaneously.

Hornet nodded; that explained their haggard faces, and why they were Facetiming in a broom closet instead of Skyping on one of their laptops in their rooms. Facing constant ambush at all hours of the day would do that, and the Essex winced as she remembered just how many escort carriers there were in Norfolk. "My condolences. I'm guessing you need my help?"

 _"Yes!"_ Wasp wailed. _"Save us!"_

 _"How the hell are you looking so chipper, anyway?!"_ Ranger hotly demanded.

"Well, there is the fact that we have more fleet carriers and less escort carriers than you guys," Hornet replied, before grinning. "But Kitkun Bay and Long Island came in handy, too."

Both pint-sized fleet carriers let out explosive sighs at that. _"Yeah, figures,"_ Ranger sullenly replied. _"Anyway, how soon can you get there?"  
_  
"Not long," Hornet answered. "I have an idea to get there fast."

~o~

"Shangri-La," the carrier said five minutes later. "I need you to punch me to Norfolk."

The answering grin her sister gave her would have been terrifying on anyone else.

~o~

Thirty minutes later, Hornet pulled herself, coughing and waving dust away from her face, out of the crater she'd made upon landing. The sight that greeted her was... mixed. On the one hand, all her targets were there, in front of her. On the other hand, all her targets were there, in front of her, and they were also surrounding a tied-up Wasp and Ranger, who at least had the good grace to look apologetic.

"Sorry..." Ranger said. "We got caught, and... well, they threatened us until we told them you were coming."

"Okay... wait a minute," Hornet said in confusion. "If they captured you, why are they still after me?"

"Fool!"

Hornet sighed as Sangamon pushed her way to the front. "Do you not even know why we are doing this?!" she demanded. "We are trying to become fleet carriers! And since defeating Wasp and Ranger didn't do anything, obviously they aren't fleet carrier enough!"

"Hey!"

"She's got a point, you know."

"But you..." Sangamon purred. "You'd be _perfect_. Girls!" As one, the gathered escort carriers turned to her. "Capture her, and prepare her for my bout! Any who achieve their new forms may keep them!"

As one, the escort carriers turned back to Hornet, raising guns and planes. The Essex, for her part, looked thoroughly unconcerned.

"Not a bad plan," she admitted, carefully brushing some dust off her shoulders. "But it's got one big, gaping flaw: it assumes I'm going to make this _easy_."

That drew a snort from Sangamon. "You're outnumbered seventy-four to one, I think we're gonna be fine."

"I think you mean _thirty-seven_ to one," Hornet countered. "Isn't that right, **「** **Chartreuse」**?"

The gathered escort carriers took an instinctive step back as a white, red-tusked elephant with sunglasses suddenly sprang to life above Hornet, just a _bit_ translucent.

"Oh boy..." Sangamon muttered as a bright red light began to form on the elephant's trunk.

~o~

"Alright, dears," Unryuu said to the knelt, bowing forms of Taiyo, Unyo, Chuyo, and Kaiyo. "What do you say to the nice carriers?"

"We're sorry," all four intoned.

Japan's eight other fleet carriers all gave noises of vague agreement before dispersing. That done, Unryuu turned to Shinyo. "So, do we know who spread this rumor?"

"Nope," Japan's largest escort carrier replied, cracking her knuckles as her face twisted into an angry snarl. "But whoever it was had better hope I don't find out."

"I agree," Unryuu said, clapping a hand on Shinyo's shoulder. Her usual smile wavered not an inch, and yet the assembled escort carriers all shivered.

"I completely agree."


	394. Rule 1386

**Rule 1386. Nagato, get rid of the petting zoo.  
**  
"Sendai!"

The light cruiser in question, who had merely been walking through Yokosuka, turned around and was struck by the sight of Kawakaze dressed up as a tabby cat.

"What."

"It's Nagato!" the destroyer answered, grabbing Sendai by her collar and pinning her with a pleading stare. "She's kidnapped all my sisters and is dressing them up as animals and she wants to set up a petting zoo with them! I only barely got away!"

Flushing, Sendai shoved down the urge to rub the destroyer's head and instead gently pried her fingers off. "Okay..." she breathed, before blinking in confusion. "Wait, how'd she get Yuudachi to go along with that?"

"Well..."

~o~

"Mm..." Yuudachi hummed as she nibbled on a strip of bacon clutched in her hands, the two ear-like tufts of hair on her head pulling at the hood of her dog costume. At the noise, Nagato sighed blissfully, rubbed the destroyer's head, and then passed on another strip of bacon.

~o~

"I'd rather not talk about it," Kawakaze muttered. "Anyway, you've gotta help save them before Nagato goes and grabs Desdiv 6, 'cause then Tenryuu'll kill her and I don't want her to actually die!"

"Mmph..." Sendai huffed. "I'd love to, but I don't fancy facing a battleship in broad daylight." Kawakaze didn't respond as Sendai mulled over the problem. "I do know who we can contact for help, though."

"Really?" Kawakaze asked, her eyes glittering. "Who?

~o~

"You're kidding me," the destroyer groused as she, Sendai, and Ryuujo walked to where the destroyer said Nagato was holed up. At least she'd been able to ditch the costume. "You picked _Ryuujo_ of all people to take on Nagato?"

"Yes?" Sendai answered. "I don't see what the problem is."

"Don't worry, Kawakaze!" the light carrier called back over her shoulder. "I got this!"

"I'm sure," the destroyer muttered.

The three shipgirls arrived a few minutes later at the room Nagato was holed up, and Ryuujo only briefly paused to palm an odd piece of paper before throwing the door open.

Inside was a blissed-out Nagato surrounded by destroyers, all dressed up in animal costumes and all turning pleading looks on the newcomers. Well, all but one.

"I am the king of the beasts!" Shiratsuyu crowed, adjusting her lion costume. "GAOOOOO!" And with that, she pounced.

Her upward flight was swiftly arrested by Nagato grabbing her tail, sending her crashing to the floor. "No, Shiratsuyu-chan, don't go," Nagato whined.

"This is even worse than I thought," Ryuujo muttered, pulling additional charms out of her shirt. "Nagamon! Begone!"

Nagato had enough time to look up before a paper charm smacked into her wrist. Contrary to all laws of physics, instead of fluttering off, it attached itself and sustained its momentum, dragging the battleship back until it hit the wall, sticking. The bliss on Nagato's face vanished and she began to reach over to remove the charm. However, another one streaked in, smacking into her other wrist and pinning it to the wall.

"Y-You-!" Nagato growled as Ryuujo stalked up to her.

"Shut up," the carrier ordered, before slapping another pair of charms on Nagato, one on her forehead and the other on her breastbone, and then made a tiger seal with her fingers. "Hai!"

Power coursed through Nagato, making her arch her back and grit her teeth, and then passed, leaving her slumped over, unconscious and still attached to the wall.

"Whew," Ryuujo sighed, wiping her forehead. "I wasn't quite sure that would work."

"Ruff!"

Ryuujo whirled around, seeing Yuudachi flying towards her, a crazed look in her eyes.

"Oh, balls."


	395. Rule 1390

**Rule 1391: When Johnston goes abyssal, AVOID HER. She returns to normal after a while, and is fairly docile, normally just sitting around the naval base, but don't bother her unless you want your face dunked underwater and stabbed repeatedly with a knife.  
**  
USS Haggard puffed out a breath of smoke as she walked home from a trip to the nearest grocery store. Two tubs of ice cream, one chocolate and one strawberry, and two large bottles of beer sat in the plastic bag she held. Reaching the base's perimeter, she ducked under the hole in the fence and continued on.

However, as she passed by the water, she saw a sight that stopped her cold: an Abyssal sitting on the edge, blue-grey eyes staring out at the lights of Coronado, the arms of her dark-brown jacket lying limply on the concrete next to her. A doughboy helmet with teeth and white pits masquerading as eyes completed the image.

 _'Maybe she didn't notice me,'_ she thought, but that hope was dashed a second later when she turned to look at her with her usual dead stare. Haggard turned one forlorn look at the bag in her hand, then sighed, walked over to the Abyssal, and emptied the contents out onto the pier, also fishing out her cigarette carton. Wordlessly, the Abyssal took the strawberry ice cream and one of the beers, as well as a cigarette, before holding up the latter to let Haggard clink her bottle against it.

The two sat in silence for several minutes, sipping on beer and letting the ice cream soften up a bit more, and then Haggard turned to the Abyssal. "So, what set it off this time, Johnston?"

Johnston pondered that for a second before shrugging.

"I get ya," Haggard replied, nodding.

Finally, the ice cream was ready, and both Abyssal and shipgirl tucked in. Haggard had a spoon on her pocketknife; Johnston simply ate it right out of the container. Still they said nothing. Soon enough the ice cream ran out, and Haggard made to stand up. When Johnston made no move to stop her, she stood fully, retrieved her bag, the empty beer bottles, and the ice cream cartons, and began walking away. She'd just left the concrete pier when someone ran past her.

"Lansdale?!" she shouted, turning to pursue - and then coming to a halt as she realized where the other destroyer was going: straight towards Johnston. Phantom pain lanced through her kidneys and lungs, and she smartly turned on her heel and began walking away, even as Lansdale's screams echoed through the night.

~o~

Medusa sighed as the elder Kearsarge fished Lansdale out of the sea. Water streamed from her mouth in torrents, frothed red with blood. More blood flowed from a series of stab wounds from her back, the cause the knife left behind in one of said wounds. Astoundingly, the destroyer was still alive. Barely.

"We really need to post a bulletin about that destroyer," the repair ship sighed, resigned to a few days of no sleep.


	396. Rule 1393

**Rule 1393. The Navy or government is not run by the Illuminati. It is wrong to tell anyone this.  
**  
New Jersey was watching TV in one of the common rooms when a grunt of frustration sounded out behind her. The first... eight or so previous times she had just elected to ignore it. This time, though, there was a commercial break, and so she could deal with this.

"Yo, Wisky, what's going on?" she called over her shoulder to her auburn-haired youngest sister, who was sitting at a table, hunched over and her headphones on. "You keep grunting in frustration and it's starting to get annoying!"

The battleship paused, and slipped off her headphones, a hint of dubstep leaking out. "Ah, sorry, I was moderating a thread on the forum I frequent and I'm just shaking my head at the stupidity of some people." The next sentence was quietly muttered: "I'm just glad there's no porn of us involved."

"Yeah, people are stupid," New Jersey nodded sagely, electing to ignore the porn comment. Only Missouri dared plumb the depths of Danbooru these days. "But I thought stupidity wasn't infractible on that forum?"

"Oh, no, it's not. But flaming and bad faith debating both are, and it's a fifteen-page thread with more spaghetti than most Italian restaurants, and I need to comb through all of it," Wisconsin answered. "Still, that's what conspiracy theory threads lead to, so I had an excuse to lock it before it got even more out of hand."

"What kind of conspiracy theories?" New Jersey asked suspiciously.

"Oh, y'know, the usual," Wisconsin replied. "Holocaust denial, moon landing was a hoax, the government and navy are being run by Illuminati, Freemasons, lizard men from Mars, Abyssals..."

New Jersey let a derisive snort escape from her nose. "Idiots. If they think you can keep something like that a secret I have a bridge to sell them." Turning back to her TV, she unmuted it, just in time for a new ad to appear. A black sea filled the screen, crackling like an old-school TV set. Floating on the sea, torn and battered, were a cartoonish donkey and elephant that badly stood out on the dark background. Slowly, a face faded onto the screen: a grinning Re-class battleship, wearing a suit instead of its usual hoodie.

 _"Vote WReck for President,"_ said a voice like loose ball bearings. _"Because why choose the lesser evil?"  
_  
"Huh," Jersey remarked. "Y'know, those guys who said the government was run by Abyssals might be right in a year or so. Just... more blatantly."

Wisconsin's only answer was to thunk her head against the table.


	397. Rule 1394

**Rule 1394. If a superior officer scolds you, it is not appropriate to accuse them of being body-snatching aliens or Abyssals.  
**  
Energy crackled around an office in Norfolk, the shipgirls on base steering well away. Inside, Nevada and Admiral Briggs glared at each other, the energy they were producing shifting into the visible spectrum between their eyes.

"Cottage cheese," Briggs blandly stated.

"Yup!" Nevada chirped, looking inordinately pleased with herself.

"You do know Kula Gulf is going to be going to counseling now, right?" the Admiral continued.

To his satisfaction, that got a wince out of the battleship. "Geez, that bad? Maybe that was a bit much..." And then that satisfaction died a swift death as her grin returned. "Eh, lesson for the future. She really should've known better than to replace my pinto beans with kidney." Her face fell back into seriousness. "You _never_ put kidney beans in chili. _Never."  
_  
Sighing, Briggs let his composure fall away in favor of a hand to massage his forehead. "What am I going to do with you, Nevada?" he groaned. "If you weren't my most powerful surface unit, I'd have had you scrapped months ago. But the fact is that you _are_ my most-"

"Hey, you're not the Admiral!" Nevada suddenly shouted, standing out of her chair and jabbing an accusatory finger at the man. "You're a-a body-snatching alien, or worse, an Abyssal! The _real_ Admiral Briggs would never-!"

"Stand down!" Briggs roared. Nevada did so, and the man sighed again. " _As I was saying-_ "

The door slammed open, and Briggs threw his hands up in frustration. "Oh, what now?!" he demanded.

Both he and Nevada got their answer once the intruder strode in: it was Briggs, dressed in a white t-shirt, his boxers, and an expression to put most volcanoes to shame.

"Nice striped boxers, Admiral," Nevada snickered.

"Nevada, shut up," Briggs snarled with a surprising amount of vitriol, before jabbing a finger at the double sitting at his desk, who was suddenly looking very nervous. "You!"

"I swear, there is a good and logical explanation for this and oh God please don't sick the shipgirls on us!" the man babbled.

"You hit me over the head with a cosh and stripped me!" Briggs shouted.

There was a long, awkward pause as that sank in, and then the man behind the desk gave a nervous grin. "Would it help to say that this was all to save my species?"

*THWACK!*

Nevada raised an eyebrow as Briggs shook out the hand he'd used to deck his imposter with. "Mmph, out of practice," he grumbled.

"Well, that was weird," Nevada muttered, standing and moving around the desk to get a good look at the imposter. To her surprise, just as she did so, he burst into green fire, turning into a... well, she wasn't exactly sure _what_ it was, just that it was vaguely humanoid and a noxious shade of brown.

"Hey, Admiral, come take a look at this!"

Briggs peeked over his desk and grimaced. "Well. South Dakota's going to have fun with that one." Then he glanced Nevada's way, and the battleship flinched as her hopes and dreams died painfully. "So. Cottage cheese?"

Nevada plastered on her best shaky grin. "She had it coming?"


	398. Rule 1400

**Rule 1400. Hetalia is now banned. You girls know why.  
**  
"So... what are we doing here again?" Enterprise groused, her arms crossed and her foot tapping on the concrete of South Dakota and Phoenix's lab.

"Well, I, for one, don't mind a paid vacation to San Diego," Constitution remarked.

"You say vacation, I call it daily life," Washington pointed out. "Mmph, I need to make that trip to Seattle..."

"If I could say something," South Dakota snarled in reply, getting a cessation of chatter. "Thank you. Now, I was watching another Japanese anime that Midway sent me-"

The battleship paused as she noticed that her three research subjects had been replaced by cardboard cutouts of themselves. Sighing, she snapped her fingers. "Phoenix, do the thing."

"Yes, ma'am!" the light cruiser enthusiastically replied, grabbing a backpack-like device and sprinting out of the room. This was followed by the sounds of shouting and a general scuffle, and then Phoenix returned, dragging a tied-up Constitution, Enterprise, and Washington back in by metal strands that lead back to her backpack. "I got them!"

"South Dakota, you fool!" Enterprise howled. "You don't take ideas from anime! That way lies giant mechanical monstrosities!"

"Or giant biological monstrosities!" Washington added.

"Or giant bio-mechanical monstrosities!" Constitution finished up.

"I assure you, no giant monstrosities are involved, mechanical or otherwise," South Dakota stated, looking somewhat miffed. "I mean, even I know an Evangelion would be a bad idea. No, I got inspired by Hetalia."

The eyes of all three tied-up shipgirls widened. "You're going to try and summon the spirit of the United States," Enterprise stated, incredulity tinging her voice. "I've said this before, but you're a goddamn _madwoman_."

"And proud of it!" South Dakota cackled, throwing a switch. Only then did the other shipgirls see the stack of materials gathered in a corner of the lab: model Boeing jets, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American flags all stacked in a haphazard pile. The Star-Spangled Banner began blaring over the speakers built into the lab and usually used for appropriate background music. A summoning circle flared to life, its glow rapidly building in intensity. The circle flashed, temporarily blinding everyone, and then it faded.

"Success!" South Dakota crowed, and then she took a look at what she'd actually summoned. "Wait, what?!"

Sitting in the circle was not Uncle Sam, Columbia, or anything remotely resembling the spirit of the United States. Instead, there was a baby in diaper and pacifier, a tuft of blond hair flopping on her forehead. And, more importantly, she was holding what looked like a bigger older brother of the Skywarrior.

"What," everyone present chorused.

~o~

Thousands of miles away, a similar scene was playing out in Portsmouth, Vanguard running the summoning and King George V warily eyeing the circle.

"Now, even odds are it's going to summon one of the ships we named after a monarch," the younger battleship explained. "Or one of the old girls named Albion or Britannia. But I'm hoping to get the spirit of our great country herself!"

"Right," King George V grunted, shading her eyes as the glow of the circle reached its peak. After a few seconds, she lowered the arm - and blinked at the sight of a rather ordinary carrier girl, albeit one dressed more like a groundpounder in hefty boots, camouflage pants, and a tank top, as well as plenty of face paint.

"HMS Albion, second of the Centaur class, reporting for duty!" she barked, saluting. A pack of fairies popped up on her shoulders, mimicking the motion with a shout of "Oy!", accompanied by smart movement of their rifles.

"Well, this is an unexpected development," Vanguard blandly remarked.

"Oh, hey Vanguard," Albion replied, lowering her salute. "And... King Edward VII, right?"

"It's King George V!" the other battleship snapped.

"Oh, don't mind her, she's got a bit of a stick up her arse," Vanguard replied dismissively, ignoring the indignant "Hey!" from the older battleship. "Why don't we grab Victorious and get some drinks and catch up? How does that sound?"

A wide grin spread over Albion's face. "Oh, I'd love that."

~o~

"Remind me again why we've never tried to summon the spirit of Japan?" Yuubari asked as she oiled their lathe machine.

"Because we've already summoned her," Yuubari pointed out as she inspected a circuit board. "Yamato, remember?"

"Ah, right."


	399. Rule 1403

**Rule 1403. Shipgirls are not allowed to offer counseling without a legitimate PhD in Psychology.**

Aoba carefully arranged a very much fabricated PhD in psychology on the wall of the building she'd parked her new practice next to. Just enough legitimacy to get business, hopefully. Stepping back, she looked over the preparations. Freudian couch, check. Fake white beard and glasses, check. Cardboard box with "Psychiatric help, 50 yen" scribbled in Sharpie on the front, check. Comfy chair, check.

Yessirree, her psychological practice was ready and waiting to snag up all sorts of juicy stories for the base's newspaper.

Oh, and her first customer, too! Aoba hastily ducked behind the box onto her chair and beamed expectantly at the approaching shipgirl.

Her smile became very shaky very quickly as she realized that it was Kongo. Visions of the battleship crawling through the vents, demolishing Iku with contemptuous ease, and diving out the back of a disintegrating C-17 all floated through her head. Not to mention the sight of her having tea with two Abyssal capital ships and not a care in the world.

But no risk, no reward! She was an intrepid reporter, and she would get her story, even from Kongo! Plus, the battleship was looking mildly... distraught. So, she slipped on her beard and glasses, and prepared to work.

"How can I help you?" she asked sweetly.

Kongo sniffled before wiping her nose and sitting down on the stool parked in front of the box. "I-I need help," she snuffled. "W-With my relationship with the Admiral."

Aoba raised an eyebrow at that. Everything she'd heard was that the relationship between Goto and Kongo was near idyllic. "What seems to be the problem?" The disguised heavy cruiser indicated the couch. "Here, lie down and we can get to the bottom of this."

Kongo sniffed again, before walking over and lying down on the couch.

"Now," Aoba began. "How do you feel about your mother?"

The battleship gave Aoba an odd look. "I'm a shipgirl. We don't _have_ moms."

"R-Right, right," the heavy cruiser hastily replied, coughing into her fist to hide the short stutter. "Well, in that case just tell me what's wrong with your relationship."

"I-It's just..." Without warning, Kongo broke out into a loud wail, tears streaming from her eyes. "He never does anything with me! He comes home late, and when he does come home on time he's too tired to do anything but eat dinner and go to sleep! I've barely spoken five words to him in the last two weeks! He doesn't love me anymo-ho-hore..."

Aoba grimaced under the beard. This was not what she was hoping for; Goto was clearly just in a bout of overwork, one that Ooyodo or the universe would likely correct soon. It also left her at something of a loss as to what to do. Stroking the beard, Aoba thought furiously. The waterworks had almost stopped when she had a flash of inspiration.

"Here," she said, retrieving a small bottle of pills from under the box. "These are antidepressants. Take two of these a day, and you'll feel better."

They weren't, but Kongo didn't need to know that.

"A-And my relationship?" she sniffed, wiping her eyes.

"Well, as long as you stay positive and take those pills, I have a feeling it'll correct itself." Aoba let out a genuine smile at that.

"Th-Thank you," Kongo said gratefully. "I-I don't know what I'd have done without you."

"It's no problem," Aoba replied. "50 yen, please."

Rolling her eyes, Kongo fished the coin out of her pocket, flipped it to Aoba, and left with a noticeable spring in her step. Aoba, for her part, doffed her disguise and sighed. Hopefully she'd get a more interesting patient soon.

Lo and behold, five minutes later another shipgirl was walking out of the building.

 _'Yes, Ashigara!'_ Aoba crowed internally. _'Perfect for gossip! ... Why is she staring at me like that?'_

As the heavy cruiser stalked forward, Aoba couldn't shake a forboding feeling.

~o~

"I'm home!" Admiral Goto announced, tugging off his tie, before neatly sidestepping the tackle-glomp Kongo nearly landed on him. The battleship popped up, no worse for the wear from smacking her head against the wall.

"Welcome back, darling!" she chirped. "You're home early today!"

"Yeah, sorry about that, the last couple of weeks have been crazy," Goto replied as he loosened his tie. "That meeting with Re-chan in the Marquesas left me with a backlog and generated plenty of work on its own."

"-chan, huh?" Kongo purred, grinning. "Should I be worried?"

"Trust me, you have nothing to worry about, Miss I-Took-A-Business-Vacation-In-Samoa-While-My-Admiral-Did-All-The-Work," Goto shot back, also grinning.

Kongo smiled even wider and leaned on Goto, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and planting a light kiss on his lips. "Well, I don't care. You're here, you have energy, and tonight we're going to- URK!"

Goto frowned as Kongo staggered back, clutching her head. "Kongo?" he asked nervously, reaching out towards her. "Are you al-"

"Her Majesty's enemies shall die!" Kongo spat in _fluent unaccented English_. "By my hands they shall be broken!"

Goto tensed, ready to bolt. "You're not Kongo," he growled.

"Of course not! I am her Majesty's ship Indestructible!" Kon- er, Indestructible shouted back. Without another word, she summoned her rigging and pointed it at him. "As an enemy commander, you must-!"

That was all she got before Goto tapped into... something and planted a fist in her gut. Despite the fact that that should have done less than nothing, the blow knocked the wind out of the battleship, allowing Goto to slam his knee into her nose and knock her out.

"Sorry, Kongo," he said softly, before flipping open his phone. "Akashi? Something's wrong with Kongo. ... No, nothing physical. Mental. ... Yeah, how'd you kno- Hang on, I gotta take this call." Switching lines, he held the device back up to his ear. "Hello? Ashigara? What are you-"

Goto was silent for a moment before a blazing red aura burst to life over him. "AOBA DID WHAT?! ... Yeah, I can see the pills. Yes, I'll get them to Akashi. And yes, I agree that this is the last straw. Something must be done."

~o~

"Hey, Kongo," Aoba said from behind the plastic of the prison's visitor's area. "So, turns out you need to have a license to be a psychologist. Who knew. So, did you fix your relationship problems?"

"Yes," Kongo ground out, idly rubbing the bandage across the bridge of her nose. "Except now I have a split personality called Indestructible in my head screaming at me 24/7 to destroy Yokosuka and everyone in it. Do you know what that does to your sex life?"

"You're not the only one with problems!" Aoba snapped back. "The food is horrible, orange looks awful on me, and these scary-looking ladies keep poking me with sharp things!"

"I'd say I feel sorry for you," Kongo glared at the now-scrapped heavy cruiser, before taking an audible sip from the cup of Coca-Cola she'd brought. "But I don't."

"You've gotta get me out of here, Kongo," Aoba pleaded. "I can't stay here. I just can't!"

"Time's up!"

"All I'll say is this," Kongo said as she stood up from her seat. "Be glad this isn't an American prison."

And with that, she turned and walked towards the door, only to shift to Indestructible midway, requiring Musashi, who'd come along for just such an eventuality, to sit on her. Again.


	400. Rule 1404

**AN: I promised myself 'No more guest chapters!'... but dammit, tying up this little subplot is a good reason to break that vow.**

 **Rule 1404. Wrestling an Abyssal Princess into submission and hogtying her with anchor chain is not the proper way to deal with them.**

By: Jack2734

The Not-So-Mighty-and-Utterly-Terrified Rock Fortress Princess peeked just above the water and scanned the horizon. It was the middle of the night, so there was no chance of interrupting Tea Time and the Abyssal Intelligence Service had reported that the insane rocket riding Light Carrier was in the Pacific and HMS Thunderchild's fleet of lunatic ships had been disbanded. This was it, her best and last chance at reclaiming her throne.

All she had to do was take her position and she would be completely invinci-

" **YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!** "

The Rock Fortress Princess barely had time to register that there was a second presence on her island before someone slammed into her side and sent the both of them rolling. As she flailed pathetically to disentangle herself from her attacker, she found her limbs being bound in anchor chain, and before she knew it, she was trussed up like a roping steer.

Satisfied with her work, the princess's unknown assailant leaped to her feet, held her hands up, and yelled, "TIME!"

"Eight point three seconds," a previously unseen third person stated. "Not bad, 'Bama. Didn't think y'all could do it."

Turning her head as best she could, the humiliated Princess finally caught sight of her attackers. Both of them were American battleships, although she could tell there was a significant age difference between them.

"Shoot, Tex, t'weren't nuthin' special," her attacker boasted. "Ain't no different than mah rodeo routine."

"Yeah, I guess ya won the bet then," the older one sighed. "I'll pay ya once we get back t' base."

 _'A BET?!'_ the princess thought. ' _That's what attacking me's been reduced to, a stupid BET between Hick Ships?!'_

That was the last straw. The subconscious dam that had held back all her anger and frustration over the past six months of failures had finally burst, and the torrent of emotions flowed forth in the only manner befitting a woman in her position: as a literal fountain of tears.

USS Alabama (BB-60) and USS Texas (BB-35) took off their Stetson and and nervously rubbed the back of their heads as they took in the awkward sight of an Installation-Type Abyssal literally crying a river of tears.

"Well," Alabama began. "This is, um... an interesting situation."

"Indeed," Texas agreed. "I - uh - I reckon we should probably apologize."

The two Battleships stared at each other, as if trying to will one another to move first. Eventually, they both brought up a fist, shook them three times, and chose their weapons.

"Scissors," Alabama said.

"Rock," Replied Texas with a smug grin.

"Shit," Alabama cursed before stepping towards the trussed up abyssal.

"Um, Miss Fortress," she began as she wrung her hat in front of her. "I'm really sorry for - uh - for tyin' y'all up like that. If'n ya don't mind, I'll go ahead and untie ya now and leave so that you can get back to your Princess officiating and stuff."

"I DON'T CARE!" the princess wailed, slamming her fists against the rock and leaving massive cracks. "I've been beaten, rammed, and exploded too many times by you psychopaths! I don't care about this stupid war! I don't care about attacking you lunatic ships or your dumb convoys! I just want to take up my position so that I can be alone on this BIG! STUPID! ROCK!"

Alabama bit her lip. _Well shit_ , she thought. _Now I feel lower than a sub at crush depth_. With a swift motion, the American Battleship pulled the quick release holding Rock Fortress Princess's arms and legs together and quickly pulled the distraught Abyssal into the warm embrace of her ample buxom.

"There, there, honey," Alabama said in a comforting voice as she patted the princess's back. "Just let it all out, and when y'all are ready to talk, we'll work something out."

Sniffling, the abyssal took the offer and hugged the battleship.

~o~  
 **  
Three Tear Filled Hours Later**

"So, we're in agreement then," Alabama started. "Y'all declare neutrality to any future attacks, and me and Tex over there will speak to the Admirals Board on your behalf about getting the rest of the girls ta lay off y'all. Deal?"

Alabama offered a handshake to seal the deal. Wiping her runny nose, the puffy-eyed Abyssal accepted it with a smile.

"Deal," she said. "Thanks again, Miss Alabama."

"Shoot, don't call me that. Miss Alabama is an Airheaded Beauty Queen. Call me 'Bama. S'what all my friends call me."

"Really," Rock Fortress Princess said in shock. "You truly think I'm your friend?"

"Sure as shootin'," Alabama answered.

The frazzled abyssal smiled. "Thanks Mi- Thanks 'Bama."


	401. Rule 1409

**Rule 1409. South Dakota is not allowed within two miles of any school.  
**  
"Dakota."

The battleship paused, sending a questioning look over her shoulder at Wright, in her usual stoic grimness. "Yeah? What's up?" she asked.

"We need to talk. Did you go near a school earlier today?" the secretary ship continued.

"Uh, yes?" the battleship replied, confused. "My route took me past one when I went to Best Buy for some extra gear to cannibalize."

"I see," Wright sighed, before snapping her fingers. "Alright, get her, girls."

Strong hands clamped down on South Dakota's armpits, another hand grabbing the back of her head and pushing her facedown into the concrete.

"Hey, what gives?!" she snapped, before recoiling at who was doing the manhandling. "Missouri?! _Massie?!"  
_  
"Sorry, sis, but it's for your own good," Massachusetts apologetically replied.

"Filth like you need to be punished," Missouri spat, further confusing South Dakota.

"Like, seriously, what's so wrong with me going near a- Hey!" she yelped as she felt something attach to her ankle. "Alright, if I don't fucking get some answers soon-!"

"You know exactly what the problem is!" Wright snapped. "You know you're not supposed to go within two miles of a school."

South Dakota gaped in shock for a moment before bucking and trying to throw off the two battleships holding her down. "No, I didn't know that! When the hell was that put into place?!" she howled, before stilling as something came to her. "Oh, for fuck's sake, this is about Calvin Graham, isn't it? Come one, I took care of the little rugrat!" At the disgusted twisting of Wright's face, she let her forehead slam into the concrete again. "NOT LIKE THAT, YOU JACKASSES! More Tenryuu and Desdiv 6, less Pedobear!"

"There's also the case of Shimakaze-" Wright began, before South Dakota interrupted her again.

"She was lonely, dammit! Ask Ranger what it's like to not have any sisters some time! And it's not like I asked her to be a stripperbote like that!"

Wright mulled that over for several minutes before snapping her fingers again. "Alright, girls, let her up," she said. "I'm afraid I can't have the restraining order rescinded, but I can get the tracking anklet removed, and-"

"Wright?"

The light carrier froze, slowly turning her head to see a beaming Admiral Holloway standing above her, one arm behind his back and the other holding up a sheaf of papers.

"Imagine my surprise when I got to the office a little early and spotted these on your desk," he said. "And when I called up the state police and they said they never wrote up said papers."

By now, Wright was sweating more sweat than a human body could produce. Actually, scratch that, she was steaming.

"I understand that being my secretary ship is a stressful job, and that South Dakota contributes... a lot to that stress," Holloway continued, still beaming. "But this is not kosher. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you over to South Dakota as a test subject. For... oh, a week."

Wright audibly gulped, and turned around to see South Dakota start to cackle gleefully.

"Oh, yes," she said, grinning. "A perfect opportunity to advance our understanding of shipgirl physiology!"

Massachusetts glanced at a cackling South Dakota, then at the frozen, paralyzed, terrified Wright, and finally to Admiral Holloway. "Should we do something about this?" she muttered to Missouri out the corner of her mouth.

"The Admiral's word is law," Missouri replied, before shuddering. "As much as I may not wish it sometimes..."


	402. Rule 1412

**1412\. It's forbidden to sortie Mamiya to "motivate" other ship-girls.  
**  
"So, Admiral," Ooyodo said as the might of the Japanese Navy sortied. "Why is Mamiya sortieing this time?"

"I figured the fleet could use the motivation," Admiral Goto answered.

His secretary ship gave him a flat look over her glasses. "I see," she stated simply. "That's quite devious of you, Admiral."

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Goto asked, the picture of innocence. "I'm talking about her sweets, of course! What else would I be talking about?"

Ooyodo just shook her head at her Admiral's antics.

Thirty minutes later found the carriers beating off a rather determined Abyssal air attack. Bombs and torpedoes boiled the seas around them, their flak guns filling the sky with razor-edged shrapnel.

"I think we might get through this unscathed!" Junyo cheerfully stated as her guns splashed another dive bomber.

"Junyo! Don't say that!" Ryuujo hissed. "The universe is always listening!"

*BOOM!*

"KYAAAAAH!"

Everyone spun around to see Mamiya nursing a burned, bruised shoulder and some tears in her outfit. "Owchie..." she whimpered.

"Mamiya, are you alright?!" nearly every carrier nearby shouted.

"See! What'd I tell you?!" Ryuujo demanded.

 _"WHAT?!"_ Akagi roared across the radio system. _"Mamiya-san's been bombed?!"  
_  
"Sorry, I got caught unawares," the food ship replied. "I'm afraid the ice cream has been spoiled."

~o~

In the other carrier group, to a chorus of wailing, crying destroyers, Akagi's face not only tightened but darkened, her eyes visible as two large, white dots. Kaga, recognizing the signs, slowly inched away from her half-sister.

"Those who commit the crime of injuring Mamiya san..." Akagi growled. "Shall have certain death visited upon them!" Raising her left hand, she jabbed her finger out towards the Abyssal surface fleet milling around just at the edge of the visible horizon. "Search and destroy! Search and destroy! Let's go, Walter!"

"Don't call me Walter..." Kaga half-heartedly grumbled as the fleet rose up as one and charged the Abyssals.

"FOR THE ICE CREAM!" came the battle cry.

The Abyssals, not expecting either the charge or the force with which it was pursued, frantically backpedaled in an attempt to escape annihilation.

Spoiler: they didn't. Overrun by destroyers, bombarded by the cruisers, and harried by planes, the Abyssals were shortly run down and destroyed, and from the chatter coming from the other carrier group the process had been repeated there. Only then did Akagi return to normal.

"This happen often?" Kasagi asked Kaga out of the corner of her mouth.

"Not often, thankfully," was the reply.


	403. Rule 1414

**Rule 1414: Your physical ages are your legal ones, not your launch dates.  
**  
"Thank you for coming," Admiral Goto announced to the gathered shipgirls of Yokosuka. "I have announcement to make: for legal purposes, your age is your _physical_ age, not your age from keel-laying or launch date."

That was met with a considerable amount of muttering, though nothing compared to what he was expecting, and he decided to clarify. "Which means if you look underage, you're underage, no matter what your launch date says!"

And in three... two... one...

"OH, COME ON!" Michishio, Hayashimo, Kisaragi, Sendai, and Nachi all shouted, before looking askance at each other. Admiral Goto did _not_ miss Hibiki, Oyashio, Fubuki, and most of the remaining light cruisers surreptitiously glance away from him and hide flasks, either.

"I know I'm going to regret this, but..." Ashigara muttered before turning around to the shamefaced quintet behind her. "Okay, Nachi, I know you and Hayashimo go drinking all the time, and Sendai's reputation is obvious, but... Michishimo, Kisaragi, what the hell's got you so upset?"

"Eh, I just like being contrarian," Michishimo shrugged.

Ashigara nodded, and with great trepidation turned to Kisaragi. "And? What about you?"

"Well, you see-" the destroyer began before Mutsuki clamped her hands on her mouth and began dragging her away.

"Sorry, sorry, we'll handle her, okay?" the destroyer assured Ashigara as she did so. The heavy cruiser, for her part, just shook her head and decided to put the incident out of mind.

Unknown to everyone else, Kamikaze let out a sigh of relief and a "Thank God..."

"So, what brought this on?" Naka asked once the shipgirls had settled down again.

"Well..." Admiral Goto began, before getting pinned by a glare from Kongo.

~o~

 _Admiral Goto and Kongo sat at the table in their shared quarters, a small cupcake with a candle in it and a wrapped present sitting between them._

 _"Happy birthday, Kongo," Goto said._

 _"Aww, Admiral, you're so nice to me," Kongo giggled, clasping her face like a lovestruck schoolgirl. Leaning over the table, she planted a kiss on her lover's cheek. "Thank you."_

 _Sitting back down, leaving behind a somewhat giddy Goto, Kongo took a breath and then blew out the candle, before tossing the cupcake in her mouth and quickly devouring it. She reached for the present-_

 _And then flinched as the door was slammed open._

 _"HAPPY 105th BIRTHDAY, KONGO!" her sisters announced, holding between them a massive cake that was practically on fire. Kongo froze, her mouth gaping open, only a soft "Buh... buh... buh..." coming out of her mouth._

 _And then the sprinklers activated._

~o~

"That's classified," he said, though observant shipgirls could see the shifty-eyed looks from the remaining Kongo sisters. "Kasumi?"

"Does this mean that Tenryuu is an unwed teenage mother?" she asked, lowering her hand.

"Do I look like a teenager, you little rugrat?!" Tenryuu shouted indignantly.

"My sister and I are in our early twenties, thank you very much," Tatsuta sniffed.

Kasumi opened her mouth to respond - and then froze as she felt an ominous aura blanket her. Slowly, she turned around to see all of Desdiv 6 looming over her, Inazuma crackling with lightning, Ikazuchi and Hibiki surrounded by black and red auras, respectively, and Akatsuki fingering a hip flask.

"That was a bad idea," Kitakami and Akebono both pointed out.

"In any case," Admiral Goto continued, ignoring Kasumi's beatdown. "You have your orders, and I expect them to be followed. Dismissed!"


	404. Rule 1418

**Rule 1418. For your own safety, please do not mention "Vocaloid", "Idolmaster", or "Love Live" around Naka.  
**  
Jintsuu stared at the posters lining the walls of the dorm she shared with her sisters Sendai and Naka. At least, shared it when the other two were there. Naka had her idol job and Sendai... well, her 'night battles' often kept her in other peoples' rooms. And right now, she was very, very glad that both were out, because the walls were entirely obscured by posters for Love Live and the Idolm ster. Jintsuu shuddered as she remembered the _last_ time Naka had seen _anything_ related to those two properties.

So much fire... so much noise...

In any case, Jintsuu retrieved a knife from under her bed and moved to start cutting down the posters-

"Hey, Jintsuu, I'm back!"

Before nearly jumping out of her skin as Naka's cheerful voice sounded out behind her.

"Ah, no, Naka-!" she began, trying to stop her sister, only for the light cruiser to sweep in - and proceed to utterly ignore the posters.

"Sendai's out tonight, huh?" Naka asked, dropping her bag on the bed. "So! What's been happening while I was gone?"

"Uh, Naka?" Jintsuu hesitantly asked. "You're... okay with...?"

"Oh, you mean the posters?" the light cruiser asked, glancing around the room. "I mean, they're still unrealistic, steaming piles of shit, but I'm over the anger. I'm one with the idol now."

At that, Jintsuu heaved a sigh of relief and surreptitiously palmed her knife as Naka sat down on her computer. She was just about to put it away when there was an almighty shriek. Jintsuu whirled around to see a moving gif of Hatsune Miku had replaced Naka's original desktop background.

"Okay, that does it!" Naka shrieked, lifting her laptop above her head. "Who put this job stealing little _floozy_ on my computer! I'm gonna murder them, and bury their body in the mountains where they'll never be found!"

"Naka, no!" Jintsuu cried out, grabbing her sister around the waist. "Remember what happened last time! Remember what happened last time!"

Naka paused in her rage to shudder fearfully. "So many colors and I couldn't hit any of them..." she muttered, before picking up her computer again and going back to incandescent rage. "But I don't care! I don't care if it's Kinu or Musashi, I'm gonna kill her!"

"Could you guys keep it down?" Sendai grumbled as she walked in, rubbing sleep from tired eyes. "I had a long night last night and I-"

The eldest of the Sendai sisters took one look at the scene in the room before slapping her face and turning on her heel. "Dammit, Harder..." she muttered. "I'll be right back, okay?"

"Make it quick!" Naka and Jintsuu chorused.

~o~

"Dammit, Harder," USS Proteus muttered as she swept through Yokosuka to where the Japanese submarines had told her Harder was. Finally, she opened a door and beheld the archery range on base - and more importantly, Harder, buried in the sod of the range up to her- _his_ neck, a square watermelon on his head festooned with arrows and a sign next to him reading "A challenge!"

While Proteus stood there gaping at the odd sight, Hiryuu stepped up next to the submarine tender, bow in hand, and set herself up. Drawing back an arrow, she let out a breath and then released, the arrow streaking not towards the watermelon, but to the side of Harder's head. Harder screamed, the arrow streaked in - and then it buried itself in the ground, a couple of locks of blonde hair fluttering down to the dirt.

"Dammit, you bitches keep doing this!" Harder shouted. "Think of my heart, why don't you!"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," Hiryuu replied. "After all, Ryuujo's coming in to show Kasagi and Aso the ropes in a couple hours, and they're not nearly as good a shot as the rest of us."

Proteus had to admit, the sudden paling of Harder's face was _very_ gratifying.

"Can you at least do something about the centipedes?!" he demanded.

Hiryuu's eyes widened. "Wow, what the hell did you do with Naka? She's usually not this vindictive."

That did it. Proteus snickered, then guffawed, and then descended into full-blown laughter. The image... it was just too much! Screw retrieving him, she was waiting until the Japanese were done with him!


	405. Rule 1422

**Rule 1422: You may not use the catapult of any carrier to launch yourself, even for fun.  
**  
Missouri woke to a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in the San Diego sky. At the beautiful day, Missouri's usual morning grumpiness melted away, and she cheerfully went through her morning routine, including a cup of coffee that somehow tasted a little better that morning.

Taking a contented sip, Missouri went up to the window and leaned out of it, taking in the beautiful day. As she did so, her happy expression morphed into twitchy, brittle, Stepford happiness.

Turning her head skyward, she glared up at the cloudless sky. "What are you going to dunk on me this time, you jackass?!" she shouted.

No lightning bolts accompanied that blasphemous demand. But what did happen was far more insidious and distressing. Namely, Johnston arcing over from North Island, her shouted "WHEEEEEEE!" dopplering her way as she slammed into the water and skipped.

Slowly, Missouri turned her eyes towards where Heerman was standing on the bow of one of the carriers docked at North Island, steam rising from its bow. Grimacing, she raised her thumb, holding it over Heermann's small form, and then summoned up one of her 16" turrets, loading up an inert practice round. Slowly, she adjusted the train and elevation of the center gun, and then, just as Heermann strapped herself to the catapult, fired. The shell arced in, aimed just so to blow the destroyer off the flight deck with its passage and yet not hit anything important. It was a point of pride to her that she pulled it off, Heermann falling screaming into the water.

"Alright," the battleship sighed, dispelling her rigging. "Time to get ready for what else the day's going to throw at me."

~o~

As it turned out, the day was all North Island carrier catapult. The battleship, accompanied by a decidedly put-out Hancock, swept her flinty gaze over the line of aviator fairies, topped off by the destroyer Kidd.

"And the steam catapults were bad enough..." Missouri muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright, Kidd, I don't care why you strapped yourself to Enterprise's EMALS. I have a pretty good idea what you were thinking, and you'll be peeling potatoes for a month."

Kidd smirked, thinking she'd gotten off easy, and then Missouri dropped the bombshell. "To _O'Bannon's_ standards. And yes, she'll be supervising."

As the destroyer fell into despair, Missouri nodded at Hancock, who stepped forward. "Look, guys, I know you're aviators, and that these sorts of stunts are Tuesday for you," she said. "But there are limits, and you kinda overdid it." She eyed the smoldering piles of metal that had been her air wing. "Not only am I going to need a lot of time and bauxite to get my air wing back up to scratch, and lemme tell ya, Admiral Holloway's not gonna like that, but you're all damn lucky none of you _died_ in that little stunt. I mean, really, launching yourself off the catapult all at once? What made you think that was a good idea?"

"Hey..." one of the fairies said dejectedly, poking its little fingers together. "Hey?"

"What do you mean, be glad we used a cardboard box?! Ah, dammit, I'm not in the mood to deal with this. You're all banned from the commissary until you get your wings back."

As Hancock's fairies fell into despair, the carrier turned back to Missouri, sighing. "Well, hopefully we won't have any more catapult-related-"

Missouri hastily clamped her hand over Hancock's mouth. "Shut up!" she hissed. "The universe is always listening!"

A loud bang sounded out from the southeast, and both shipgirls glanced towards the downtown waterfront to see steam billowing out of a rent in the side of the USS Midway Museum. This was followed up by a cry of "OH COME ON, GIRLS! REALLY?!" from the naval base to the south.

"Duly noted," Hancock muttered as Missouri slapped a hand to her face.


	406. Rule 1429

**Rule 1429. Making cordial visits to Rock Fortress Princess is fine, just clear it with either the COs or secretary ships beforehand.  
**  
"Heh heh heh..." Pola chuckled as she steamed through the Western Mediterranean, zig-zagging back and forth through the waters not due to any desire to confuse submarines, but by the copious amounts of wine she'd consumed both on the way there and before ever leaving Majorca. Two more bottles of far superior vintage were clasped in her hands. And in the distance loomed the Rock of Gibraltar, and its pale guardian. Slowly, the heavy cruiser pulled up the two bottles, and stared at them.

"Hmm, would she like white or red?" she wondered, before shrugging in that way only the drunk can pull off. "Eh, whatever, it's why I brought two!"

Finally reaching the base of the promontory, Pola waved up at the figure sitting at the top. "Hey, Rock Fortress! I brought wi-"

Any further words from Pola were cut off by the Rock Fortress Princess landing on her head, sending her face-first into the water. Not content with that level of cranial trauma, the Abyssal yanked a sputtering Pola out of the water and began slamming her forehead against the rock.

"I'm- sick- and- tired- of- shipgirls- coming- to- bug- me!" she growled, each word punctuated by another slam against the rock. "We have a truce! Follow it!"

One more slam for good measure, and she pulled her hand back to take a look at Pola. The heavy cruiser, for her part, was bleeding profusely by some unpleasant dents in her skull, eyes swirling in their sockets, and not just from the alcohol. "Lookit the purty lights..." she slurred. Somehow, the two wine bottles remained intact.

With a grunt of disgust, the Rock Fortress Princess took the bottles off Pola's hands and tossed her down into the sea. "Too bad this isn't anything stronger," she muttered as she climbed back up the rock.

She was halfway through a very good bottle of white wine when her phone buzzed. Picking it up, she read over the message, and then her eyes widened and she dove down into the waters to grab Pola, leaving the phone behind.

On the screen was a message from Gorizia: _"Sry, just found out Pola's heading your way. Friendly, don't attack!"_

~o~

"Okay, Pola, what did we learn?" Gorizia asked her bandaged, waterlogged, and - unusually, given her propensity for hair of the dog - hungover older sister.

"That if I'm visiting the Rock Fortress Princess I need to either clear it with a superior or call ahead, preferably both," she replied, groaning.

"Very good," Gorizia said before sweeping out. "Maybe this'll get her a little more confidence..."


	407. Rule 1432

**Rule 1432. Nagato's classes on using your cannons in hand to hand combat were in fact approved. Kongo's classes on how to systematically destroy your opponent in a zen like state of nigh perfect prediction were not, as that also requires her amount of experience.  
**  
Admiral Goto paused in his rounds as he walked past the base's bulletin board, looking fondly on the sign-up sheet for Nagato's classes on how to use your cannons in hand to hand. All the little stubs at the bottom were gone, which meant that soon enough all his shipgirls would have melee skills worth mentioning. Idly, he wondered if Tenryuu, Kiso, Tatsuta, Uranami, and Murakumo had been convinced to join in yet.

His eyes roamed around the board, tacked full of language lessons and small concerts and lessons in zen martial arts from Kongo and-

Wait a minute.

Looking closer, Goto saw that instead of one poster offering combat lessons of some kind, there were _four_. He hadn't authorized them, he knew that, he would have seen them cross his desk. One was from Kongo, naturally, promising the user the ability to enter that zen-like combat state she entered every so often. There was Enterprise, giving lessons on fighting damaged and damage control. There was Acadia offering lessons on polar operations.

And actually, looking closer, there was another one for subsurface rescue from... _Kursk?!  
_  
Admiral Goto felt a pit form in the bottom of his stomach. "That had better not be the Kursk I'm thinking of," he muttered.

Taking the tabs off of Acadia's and Enterprise's sheets, he made his way back to his office, mulling over the problem. By the time he got there, he had a plan of attack.

"Ooyodo," he said, putting the time stubs on her desk. "I need you to pick a shipgirl to go to one of these classes, and then take the other yourself."

"Yes, sir," she said, nodding. "And what are you going to do?"

"First, I need to talk to Kongo, and then I need to go to the aquatics center," he said, grim-faced. "In the meantime, could you call up the Americans and ask them to have an NBC cleanup team on standby?"

Ooyodo paled, and frantically nodded.

"Good."

~o~

"Kongo? Honey?" he called out as he entered his quarters. "We need to talk!"

"Comi~ing!"

The battleship flounced into the room, wearing a Buddhist monk's outfit that left one arm and shoulder bare. "YES, what is it?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Goto held up the stub he'd torn off. "How long has this been going on?"

"Well, my first two classes weren't so successful, only Fubuki mastered it, but I feel good about this third class!" Kongo cheerfully replied. Her face fell as Goto's stony glare didn't budge. "Uh, didn't you get my emails?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Goto retrieved his phone, opened up his inbox, and flicked through it, his brow furrowing. Kongo's stomach plummeted further and further as Goto fiddled with the email app, and she couldn't help a light gulp when he finished.

"You sent them to my personal email, you silly goose," he said, smiling fondly. "And then it got shoved in my spam folder for some reason. Anyway, I'll get the paperwork taken care of. You go back to your lesson, okay?"

Kongo nodded eagerly, and then skipped out the door. Once he was sure she was gone, Goto sighed and stepped out the door, back to grim-faced. This next trip was not going to go as well, he felt it in his gut.

~o~

Ooyodo resisted the urge to facepalm at her choice of classes. Acadia and the Japanese shipgirls attending were all gathered in front of the base's _walk-in freezer_ , and the light cruiser had a sneaking suspicion where this was going. The fact that Acadia was bundled up in at least four layers only added to her suspicions.

"Alright, ya wimps!" the Canadian survey ship barked, slapping the door of the freezer. "The first and most obvious thing about polar operations: it's cold! Really cold! Now, this freezer is still too warm for my tastes, but it'll do!" And with that, she swung it open. "Now get in there and start getting used to this!"

"I hope the Admiral and Yamakaze are having better luck," Ooyodo muttered as she followed the crowd.

~o~

As it turned out, the green-haired Shiratsuyu was _not_ having better luck. Currently, she was getting pressed down by Enterprise's looming gaze, sweating profusely and fighting the urge to bolt.

"Alright, spill, Evergreen," Enterprise ordered. "How did you sink?"

"I-I... uh..."

The legendary carrier didn't say anything, merely maintaining her gaze. Under such intense pressure, Yamakaze did the only thing she could.

She fainted.

Enterprise sighed, then turned towards the rest of her class. "Anyone else up for volunteering?"

She got no answer.

~o~

The aquatics center was one of the more stress-free parts of the base. There seemed to be some sort of unspoken rule that none of the usual shenanigans flew there, especially after Iku's interference in its opening pool party.

And, as it turned out, it had become the preferred home for a decidedly ex-Russian nuclear guided missile submarine right under his nose.

"She's been here _how long?!"_ he demanded.

The two maintenance personnel and Hibiki all shrugged. "She followed me home from Vladivostok a couple months back, saying something about needing a stiff drink," the destroyer replied.

"And we haven't brought up the rescue classes because..." The tech helplessly indicated the submarine girl sitting at the bottom, staring up at the ceiling. "None of us had the heart to stop her or get the forms filled out."

And that was the rub, wasn't it? Sighing, Goto pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did you at least have her get a physical?" The suddenly shifty looks from the men and shipgirl in front of him were answer enough. "Get her that physical, I can write you up a proper order if I have to. The last thing we need is a reactor accident. If she's safe, she can stay."


	408. Rule 1436

**Rule 1436. Threatening to "give them the Bowfin treatment" to correct behavior among destroyers is absolutely forbidden./Rule 1437. For the sake of your own safety, do not bring up or reference the Tsushima Maru Incident to Bowfin in any form.  
**  
Atlanta stared with pursed lips at the sitting and utterly unrepentant destroyers Spence and Converse, two of Arleigh Burke's old 'Little Beavers' and thus sporting the telltale buck teeth. They were also among the more problematic of the squadron, with a penchant for bullying Japanese destroyers. Hence why they were currently sitting on the pier with a cruiser looking to reprimand them.

"Okay, as impressed as I am with Converse's shot," Atlanta began, only to be interrupted by smug giggles from the two destroyers. Glaring, Atlanta palmed a 5" AAC shell and tossed it between, the shrapnel sending the two scrambling. "As I was saying, as good as that shot was, the fact that it was to seal our Japanese _guests_ in one of the coastal caves after baiting them with ice cream is just not kosher."

"And what're ya gonna do about it, huh?" Spence taunted. "Take away privileges? You know we're just gonna take 'em back. Pull us off duty? Please, we'd love the vacation. A lecture from the Admiral? He's no Arleigh Burke." Grinning, the Fletcher stood and looked the taller Atlanta in the eyes. "Face it. You've got nothing."

Her teeth audibly grinding, Atlanta, though she couldn't refute the point, didn't back down. There had to be something she could do to correct these little brats! Something-!

A wicked idea came to her, and her frown stretched out into a smile. "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do," Atlanta said, stepping forward and grabbing a suddenly nervous Spence by her cheeks. That nervousness doubled when she felt one of Atlanta's torpedo mounts poked her stomach. "I'm gonna give you the Bowfin treatment. How does that sound?"

The Tsushima Maru incident was... rightly infamous the world over. Poor Bowfin had gotten roundly slammed as another "Ms. Warcrimes" before the Admiralty had managed to spread the word that she hadn't known the ship was loaded with children. Spence gulped, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Converse starting to creep away. Smart girl.

"I'M SORRY!"

Blinking, Spence leaned around a suddenly stock-still Atlanta to see Bowfin, still dripping wet, curled up on the dock, mumbling "I didn't know, I didn't know" over and over to herself.

"Huh," the destroyer said, before pulling back in front of the light cruiser. "Atlanta, I think you dun goofed."

 _"Yes, she has."  
_  
Suddenly, without any sign of movement, Arizona and Missouri were just _there_ , looking positively... cheerful?

"I'd say I feel sorry for you," Converse remarked, loudly sipping from a plastic cup full of Coca-Cola. "Buuuut I don't. C'mon, Spence, let's blow this taco stand."

"Sure thing!"

"Wait, don't leave me!" Atlanta wailed as the two destroyers fled the scene. They didn't listen, naturally, and once they were out of sight the light cruiser slumped forward, resigned to her fate.

 _"Keep the destroyers around so we keep things tame, huh?"_ Arizona said, her voice reverberating. _"Not a bad idea."_

 _"But now that they're gone, it's time for punishment,"_ Missouri picked up. _"Prepare yourself, Atlanta."_

~o~

Admiral Holloway stared at the wide-eyed, stiff-as-a-plank form of Atlanta lying in front of him.

"So... what did Missouri and Arizona do to her, exactly?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"They fuckin' showed her _Son of the Mask_ ," Iowa spat. "Actual, literal fucking demons think that's too much, and I'm talking from fucking experience here."

Admiral Holloway's eyes widened, and he heard Wright dry-heave. "I see..." he said. "Alright, take her to Wisconsin and tell her I'm prescribing a regimen of the most sickeningly diabetic slice-of-life anime she has."

"Will do."


	409. Rule 1439

**Rule 1439. Just because the USN has a Green Fleet doesn't mean that you can immediately substitute fuel oil with unprocessed beef fat or used cooking oil for longer missions.  
**  
"So... hungry..." Akagi groaned as she shambled through Yokosuka.

"I'm with you there," Musashi added.

The two ships had been part of a recently returned task force, one that had burned quite a bit of fuel, and other ships had had priority for refueling. All of which left two very hungry capital ships stumbling through the base, and not in any right state of mind. At least, until Musashi suddenly perked up, sniffing the air.

"Wait..." she said, holding out her hand to stop Akagi. "I smell something..."

Musashi started in a different direction, continuously sniffing the air, with a totally-out-of-it Akagi trailing behind. The journey took them to the small parking lot in the back of mess, and several steel drums, each giving off that smell that the battleship had followed. She quickly yanked off the top of one of them, and pumped her fist.

"Yes!" she crowed. "Cooking grease!" She then blinked stupidly, still in that pose, as Akagi yanked the drum away from her and started chugging. "Hey!" Musashi protested, before eyeing several more drums out the corner of her eye. "Eh, whatever."

Grabbing another drum, Musashi didn't bother pulling off the top, instead biting a chunk out of the steel and then drinking out the hole, a barrage of flavors from the cooking assaulting her taste buds.

"Ah..." she groaned. "So good..."

~o~

The next morning, neither shipgirl was feeling nearly as good.

"Ooooohhhh... my stomach..." Akagi groaned. "This is worse than that time I ate Hiei's attempt at sukiyaki..."

"Mike Tyson's going fifteen rounds with my small intestine!" Musashi wailed. "Make him stop!"

"And this is what you get for just straight-up drinking used cooking oil like that!" Akashi snapped. "You can burn that, sure, but then this happens!"

"And... what is 'this'?" Kaga asked in her usual stoic calm. Anyone looking closer, though, would notice a certain tension in her posture and yes that indicated worry.

"Basically, they fouled up their boilers/gastrointestinal tract. Imagine if they'd chugged straight Venezuelan crude," Akashi answered, nodding at the wince that drew out of Kaga. "I'm going to need to open them up for a full boiler overhaul. And this is why you need to _refine_ biodiesel before mixing it with conventional fuels. This'd foul up a gas turbine just as badly."

"Ah," Kaga replied. "Should I stay, or...?"

"You're better off waiting," the repair ship answered. "Trust me, boiler overhauls on shipgirls are not a pretty sight."


	410. Rule 1443

**Rule 1443. To the person making figurines of ship girls with removable clothes, report to the admiral immediately before they find you.  
**  
Kisaragi practically sprinted to her room as she left the mail room. Her latest package had arrived! She still didn't know why they needed to be mailed, the maker was on the base, but for these, she'd accommodate the odd wish.

Throwing open her door, she practically slammed the cardboard box on her desk, grabbed her box cutter-

"Ahem."

And flinched at the sudden cough, turning around to see Mikazuki sitting on her bed being her usual serious self. "Oh, hi, Mikazuki!" Kisaragi said, surreptitiously sliding the box a little further back. "What's up?"

Her younger sister merely raised Kisaragi's plastic figurine of Takao, and plucked off the skirt. "Really?" she said. "Look, just tell me who you're buying these from and I won't tell anyone about your collection."

Kisaragi didn't answer, instead eyeing the room for escape routes. "And?" she asked, stalling for time. "What I do on my own time is my business!"

"Well, yeah, normally it would be, but you're not the only one buying these figurines, and word got out," Mikazuki replied. "And now the Admiral has taken an interest. So I'm going to ask one more time: tell me who the supplier is, or I share your little hobby with the legions of pissed-off shipgirls."

Like the mature adult she was, Kisaragi considered that and then just stuck her tongue out at her sister.

"Alright, can't say I didn't warn you," Mikazuki sighed, snapping her fingers.

At that, Tenryuu kicked down the door, shattering it into splinters. "Okay, Kisaragi, hand over the figurines and no one... gets..." The light cruiser trailed off as she took in the sight of all four of Desdiv 6 sitting on Kisaragi's desk, utterly nude. "Yooooouuuuuuu..."

"Oh, crap," Kisaragi whimpered as Tenryuu drew her sword and advanced on the destroyer, steam streaming out of her mouth.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Mikazuki said. As Tenryuu went to town on her older sister, she opened up the box Kisaragi had picked up. Naturally, inside there were more figurines: Tone and Chikuma, Yuudachi, and-

The destroyer raised an eyebrow at the Titanic figurine sitting in the box. "Oh boy..."

~o~

Goto looked over the list of shipgirls that had been made into figurines. It was a depressingly long list. Idly, he picked up and swung the Titanic figurine, making a mental note to have it sent to Langley.

"So, we still don't know who's making these?" he asked.

Tenryuu and Ashigara - who had led the investigation - both shook their heads. "Nope," the former answered. "Even Kisaragi didn't know, even with what I did to her."

"About that..." Ashigara stated, her voice flat. "That was kind of overkill, don't you think?"

"You weren't there," Tenryuu spat. "Destroyers are not for lewding! Even to themselves! But yeah, we've got no leads."

"Alright," Goto sighed, pre-empting another reply from Ashigara. "We'll have to table this for now. Keep an eye out for any more buyers, alright?"

"Yes, sir!"


	411. Rule 1447

**Rule 1447. Kitakami, there will be no sacrificing Ooi to dark and terrible gods.  
**  
Kiyoshimo looked up from the engineering manual she was trying and mostly failing to decipher as a knock sounded at the door. "Coming!" she called, standing up and opening the door to find a haggard-looking Kitakami. "Oh, hi, Kitakami."

"Is she here?" the torpedo cruiser rasped. "Is Ooi here?"

"I don't think so..." Kiyoshimo answered, only for Kitakami to sweep past her and look under her sheets. Then under her bed, in her closet, under the desk, and in the vents. She was just starting to pull up the carpet when Kiyoshimo grabbed her by the shoulders.

"How would she even fit under there?!" the destroyer demanded, pulling as hard as she could.

Wordlessly, Kitakami relented and allowed herself to be pulled back. That done, she let out a tired sigh. "Sorry, Kiyoshimo," she said. "I just... she's relentless and I'm exhausted and... fuck. This is why I need your help."

"Okay..." Kiyoshimo drew out. "And, uh, how am I supposed to help?"

"You have that book," Kitakami replied, perhaps a bit desperately. Actually, given she was holding Kiyoshimo up close to her face by her lapels, make that a lot desperately. "The book that can summon demons! I can sacrifice her to it, she'll even go along with it!"

"How did you-! No, never mind, I'm not giving it to you!" Kiyoshimo snapped. "I learned my lesson the last time!" She shuddered fearfully. "So many colors and they wouldn't stop talking... And I don't even have it anymore!"

"Who. Does?" Kitakami snarled.

~o~

"Give you that fucking Necronomicon lookalike?" Iowa asked.

Kitakami nodded, trying very hard not to look at Iowa's bare breasts, only marginally covered by the towel hanging around her neck.

"Mm, well, I dunno," Iowa hummed, tapping her chin. "I mean, I get along with those guys just fine, but a little fucking cunt like you? They'd fucking eat you alive. Soooo... yeah, you'd need to give me a very fucking good reason."

"I'll do anything!" Kitakami wailed, falling to her knees and grabbing the battleship's ankle. "Anything!"

"Anything, huh?" Iowa drawled, a lecherous grin spreading over her face.

 **Three hours later:  
**  
Kitakami staggered out of Iowa's room, her clothing wrinkled and disheveled, wincing with each step. More importantly, though, was the book clutched in her hands. She'd done it. Now, she just needed to convince Ooi...

~o~

A week later, Kitakami stood over Ooi, who was bound to a stone table and covered in a towel, an enthusiastic smile under her gag. She thought it was a ritual to bind them together in blood; in reality, it was a ritual to sacrifice Ooi to a demon in exchange for... well, not in exchange for anything, really. Losing Ooi would be reward enough.

Opening up the book to the ritual - pointedly, one that was _not_ keyed to virgins - Kitakami began chanting the ritual in its dark tongue. Black swirled above the red summoning circle, writhing into strange and scary shapes. Stepping forward, Kitakami retrieved a knife, drawing it across her forearm and letting the blood drip into the circle. That done, she stepped forward and did the same with Ooi.

The chanting crescendoed as it was resumed, the black shadows reaching up to greater heights. And then, the circle flashed, the shadows rushing out. _"But Khorne, I don't wanna!"_ was heard in a high-pitched whine. And then, the shadows vanished, Ooi was still on the tablet, and Samuel B. Roberts in somewhat skimpy, heavily spiked red-and-black armor and holding her twin 5" guns was floating above them.

 _"WHO DARES SUMMON-_ Oh, hi, Kitakami!" the destroyer escort cheerfully said.

"Wha- buh- Sammy B., what are you doing here?!" Kitakami demanded.

"Weeeelllll, you called up a demon of Khorne, and I was the closest, so I was sent, even if I don't want to do it," she replied, looking down and eyeing Ooi, who in a stunning turn of events was actually looking nervous. "Buuuut if you want me to get rid of Ooi for you, I think I can do that." Reaching down, Samuel B. Roberts grabbed the stone table and lifted it up, both shipgirls ignoring Ooi's frantic, though silent, pleading. "So! You want an actual boon for this? Khorne's gonna love this girl!"

"Hmm..." Kitakami hummed. "Actually..."

~o~

Back in Yokosuka, Tama was lying on top of the wall, sunning her belly. Pure bliss.

The crunch of asphalt caught her ears, and she opened one eye to see Kitakami walking back up to the base. A wicked idea entered the cat-like girl's mind, and she sat up into a squat, leaning over the edge of the wall on the balls of her feet.

"Tama POUNCE!" she announced, hurling herself through the air at Kitakami - who sidestepped almost before she launched herself and let her sister plow into the dirt. The torpedo cruiser thought back to all her sisters: Tama's and Kuma's animal tics, Ooi's obsessive yandere tendencies, and the more-chuuni-than-you Kiso. Now? Now she could avoid them, see them coming even before they thought of it. Life was good.

And then a portal opened up in front of her, dumping out Roma, Ryuujo, and Ooi, the former two holding a rosary and ofuda, respectively, to the torpedo cruiser's forehead, and the latter looking distinctly more... demonic.

"The power of Christ compels you!" Roma shouted, followed by Ryuujo slamming the paper home. "Kai!"

As some sort of dark power streamed out of Ooi, aaccompanied by pain screams, Kitakami fell to the ground in despair. "No..."

"Oh, hey, Kitakami!" Ryuujo said as she stood up. "We got Ooi back for you!"

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

With that howl of utter anguish, Kitakami snagged two torpedoes, and jumped at the carrier and battleship. The two shipgirls dodged the torpedoes and their explosion, but both gulped audibly when she turned a white-eyed, sharp-toothed glare at them, two more fish in hand.

"She usually like this?" Roma asked.

"Nope," Ryuujo answered.

"We dun goofed?"

"Probably."

"Run?"

"Yup."


	412. Rule 1452

**Rule 1452. All shipgirls with a mark on their record younger than 90 days are preemptively banned from attending the Superbowl in person.  
**  
"Alright, everyone!" Admiral Holloway announced to his gathered shipgirls. "As you know, all shipgirls are currently banned from attending the Super Bowl."

Minneapolis and Oakland wilted under the combined glares of every shipgirl in the room.

"However," Admiral Holloway stated, drawing the oppressive atmosphere off the two cruisers. "As Naka and her sisters have been tapped for the halftime show this year, the NFL has agreed to relax the rule somewhat." Excited murmuring broke out among the audience, and Holloway grimaced. This was _not_ going to go over well. "As such, all shipgirls who have not had a mark on their records within the last ninety days can attend." With that, he pulled out a pair of tickets and waved them in the air. "Congratulations, Wichita, William D. Porter."

Silence fell on the room, the two named shipgirls glancing at each other, grinning, and pulling Eagles and Chiefs flags out of their pockets.

 _'In 3... 2... 1...'  
_  
"WHAT?!" the entire room roared.

"Do you know how many of us have marks on our records?!" San Francisco demanded.

"This is tyranny!" Boston shouted.

Admiral Holloway opened his mouth to quell the incipient riot, only for Iowa to beat him to the punch.

"SHUT THE FUCK UUUUUUP!"

"Thank you, Iowa," Holloway said as the room fell silent again. "I am well aware of how many of you have marks on your records. Consider this incentive to clean up your acts over the next year. Also, we have rented out a movie theater for your viewing pleasure, so no riots. Okay?"

"Okay..." came the despondent mutters.

~o~

The day of the Super Bowl came. Willie D. and Wichita were ensconced in the stands at opposite sides. And the shipgirls watching in the theater had come to blows over... something. It involved Wisconsin and both Chicagos getting into another argument that had promptly sucked in Minneapolis and Washington, which in turn brought San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and St. Louis into the fray. And since it was during the halftime show - and given that most American shipgirls had a strong aversion to Naka's brand of sugary dance-pop - things had gotten quite out of hand.

"This counts as rioting, just so you all know!" Admiral Holloway called out as he and the Iowa sisters waded into the fray, ducking around thrown chairs and drink cups.


	413. Rule 1459

**Rule 1459. This is common sense, but we have to say it. No running in the halls.  
**  
In Bremerton, you could always tell when Shimakaze showed up.

"PLEASE, DEAR, YOU MUST WEAR SOMETHING DECENT!"

"Nyah!"

After all, she always managed to set Maryland off.

"This is fun!" Kiyokaze giggled as she ran alongside her big sister, dodging and weaving around the base's naval personnel. "Is this why you keep volunteering for Bremerton runs?"

"Yup!" Shimakaze replied, grinning cheekily.

And so the chase continued, the two destroyers' evasive maneuvers slowing them just enough, along with the corners, for Maryland to stay in sight. The battleship, arguably even more nimble (and showing it on said corners) didn't bother with the evasions, simply heedlessly plowing ahead and sending the crowds parting like the Red Sea.

In hindsight, given the frequency of the chases, it's amazing what happened next hadn't happened sooner. Namely, a female warrant officer walking down the corridor, music blaring in her earbuds, found herself in the path of the chase.

"GANGWAY!" Shimakaze shouted in English as she and Kiyokaze darted around the woman. She paused to glance curiously back at the fleeing destroyers, and then turned back down the hallway - right in time to get bowled over by Maryland's clenched hands to her face, sending her flying onto her back, followed shortly by stomping feet to the waist and chest, the last one barely missing her head.

As medics swarmed the unlucky woman, Maryland continued in pursuit of the two sisters. And, as per usual, a small group of sailors tried to stop her. _Un_ usually, they made the grave mistake of trying to form a line to stop her with brute force. There was a reason they were backup offensive linemen despite their impressive physique, after all. 1200 pounds of human meat collided with nearly 40,000 tons of battleship, with predictable results: all four sailors were sent flying toward painful and bone-crunching impacts with the walls.

Finally, Shimakaze and Kiyokaze found their destination: Admiral Richardson's office. Both of them dove through the door, landing in front of the Admiral's desk and just missing the Admiral himself, who had just been hanging up his coat.

"Shimakaze? Kiyokaze?" he asked, bewildered. "What are you-"

"No time to talk, Admiral!" Shimakaze said at high speed as Kiyokaze slid open the window. "Gotta run!"

And with that, the two dove out the window, leaving behind a rather confused Admiral Richardson. "What in the-"

WHAM!

"SHIMAKAZE!" Maryland called out, only to blink as she saw no sign of the destroyer. "Aw, she got away again..."

"I'd say that's the least of your problems..."

The battleship blinked, turned around, and moved the door away from the wall, revealing a rather squashed and very pissed off Admiral Richardson embedded in the drywall. "Uh... oops?" she said, rubbing the back of her head.

The sound that came out of Admiral Richardson should not have been producible by a human throat.


	414. Rule 1465

**Rule 1465. Fairies are to stop "Drain Spelunking" Immediately. The entire process is extremely dangerous and unsanitary.  
**  
Five fairies from USS Louisville clambered up onto the edge of one of the massive industrial sinks located in the San Diego naval base's kitchens, one flanked by two others, then clambered down into the sink itself next to the drain.

"Hey?" one of the fairies asked.

On cue, the other four produced rope, anchors, and fairy-sized flashlights and helmet lamps. Nodding, the first fairy stepped forward, its tiny little hands waving.

"Hey hey hey!"

Within a few minutes, the fairy was suited up and ready to go where no fairy had gone before: down the drain. The other fairies quickly set the anchors, and then flashed thumbs up at the spelunker, who quickly eased herself down into the drain.

The next fifteen minutes was spent lowering the spelunker into the drain, monitoring her progress via radio. Finally, in a giant leap for fairykind, she landed at the bottom of the drain - and waist-deep in the wet, rotten muck that layered the bottom of the garbage disposal.

 _"Hey..."_ came the half-disgusted, half-despondent response.

"Hey," one of the topside fairies replied, trying to direct her companion deeper into the drainage. "Hey hey he-"

"Do you see your fairies?"

All four topside fairies froze as William D. Porter's voice wafted into the room, followed shortly by Louisville's.

"Not on the counters... not the stove... really hope they didn't lock themselves into a fridge... lemme check the sinks."

The heavy cruiser's face poked over the lip, taking in the sight of four frozen fairies and a very obvious rope system leading down into the drain. The sight was further reinforced by the fortuitous crackle of the radio.

 _"Hey?"_ the spelunker asked, confused, drawing a cold sweat from the topside fairies.

"Oh for..." Louisville groaned, massaging her temples. "Willie, I found 'em!"

"Oh, really?" the destroyer asked as she walked over. "Where were the-" She cut herself off, glasses slipping slightly down her nose, as she took in the scene in the sink. "Is... Is one of your fairies _spelunking down the drain_?"

"Looks like..." was the muffled reply.

William D. Porter eyed the ropes for a second, and then reached over to a switch in the wall. "Well, let's turn on the sink light and see how many there are."

"Right," Louisville muttered, only for her eyes to widen as her brain caught up. "Wait, Willie, no, that's not a light!"

Too late. Willie flicked the switch, and the garbage disposal whirred to life for a few seconds before Louisville practically flung herself at the switch and flicked it off. Cruiser, destroyer, and fairies all waited with bated breath as the garbage disposal fell silent, the silence growing increasingly tense as no response occurred. And then, finally, a sludge-coated fairy head poked out of the drain, looking distinctly disgruntled.

"Hey!" she snapped.

Louisville and her fairies all let out sighs of relief.

"Ueh..."

Willie D.'s reaction was rather more... operatic.

"WAAAAAHHHH!"

"Uh, Willie?" a suddenly nervous Louisville said as the destroyer burst into tears. "Shit. Where's the nearest Fletcher?"

~o~

"I don't fucking believe this," Nicholas said in flat disbelief, Strong tucking a distraught Willie D. into bed in the room they were standing outside of. "Six months. Six months of carefully cultivated character development and hard-earned levels in badass, all down the drain!"

"Uh..." De Haven began.

"Yes, I'm aware of the damn pun!" Nicholas snapped, before holding her hands out in front of her and taking a few deep breaths. "Okay. Okay, I'm fine."

"I'm so sorry about this," Louisville apologized. "I-"

"Not your fault," Nicholas replied dismissively. "Your _fairies_ , on the other hand..."

All five fairies in question looked down in contrition, one still covered in rapidly drying sludge.

"Oh, don't worry," Louisville replied, venom dripping from her voice. "I'll be talking about this to the Admiral, and there will be _no_ more 'spelunking'."


	415. Rule 1466

**Rule 1466. The Fairy airmen are to stop their attempts at training pigeons as mounts.  
**  
Admiral Holloway sighed as he looked over his staff car. Once again, the vehicle was absolutely _plastered_ with bird poop. Glancing up at a nearby tree, the Admiral resisted the urge - with some difficulty - to pull out his sidearm and shoot the pigeon blinking stupidly on the branch. Instead, he made a mental note to visit a car wash, and opened the door, internally relieved that none of the bird poop had hit the handle.

However, before he could get in the car and leave the day behind him, he heard a faint "Heeeeeeeeeyyyyyy!" wafting through the air. The temptation to not look up and just let his head bonk against the roof of his car was strong, but the bird poop precluded that. So instead, he looked skyward to see a saddle-clad pigeon looping through the air, a screaming aviator fairy on its back.

Holloway wasn't sure how long he stood there, just watching a fairy try to ride a goddamn pigeon, but he was broken out of it by a voice speaking up beside him.

"Aw, dammit, I told Monterey this wouldn't work."

Slowly, jerkily, Holloway turned his head towards Cabot. "What."

"Yeah, she thought this would be a good way to train her fighter pilots for bombing runs," Cabot explained, watching the fairy try and fail to control its mount. "I, naturally, knew it would be a bad idea, but then her bomber pilots pitched in and after that there was no way I was convincing her otherwise."

"Bombing runs?" Holloway parroted, feeling just a little stupid. "Pigeons can't carry bombs, they don't have the-"

Cabot took a hesitant step back as the penny dropped for Holloway, his face twisting into an ugly scowl. "GODFUCKINGDAMMIT SHE'S USING MY CAR AS THE TARGET!"

As if on cue, the pigeon with the fairy chose that moment to fly over his car and release its payload.

"GRAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

~o~

 _"Ah, my condolences,"_ Admiral Collingwood said, wincing. _"Indomitable's fairies got the same idea, except with swallows. The base is covered in coconuts."  
_  
Admiral Holloway opened his mouth-

 _"_ European _swallows, you twit."  
_  
"And their unladen airspeed is...?" Holloway immediately pivoted, grinning.

The glare that he received in return would have impressed Victory. _"I hate you. So much."  
_  
"Hey, you totally set yourself up for that."


	416. Rule 1471

**Rule 1471. You are not allowed to own, trade, sell, transport, or otherwise have in your possession any cursed object.  
**  
"So, you've got precognition now?" Kiso asked Kitakami as they walked down one of the streets of Yokosuka. The two sisters were on a sisterly shopping trip, in the interest of getting away from the _rest_ of their sisters. Tama had gotten into the catnip again, Kuma was preparing for winter, and Ooi was... Ooi. And despite Kitakami's exhausted surliness and Kiso's Chuuni tendencies, the two actually got along fairly well.

"Yes. A little gift for the... sacrifice," Kitakami replied, looking like she'd bitten into an apple that had been left out in the sun for three days. "Oh, by the way, take a step to the left."

Despite a puzzled blink, Kiso did so, just in time for a bicyclist in full spandex gear to zoom past.

"That dude is going to hit something and get flung on his face and then get a few million views on Youtube, I just know it," Kiso remarked as she watched the cyclist keep going.

The two continued in companionable silence, occasionally stopping to look in a window, until Kiso perked up, her gaze darting straight to a small shop tucked into an alleyway.

"Oh, let's go in that one," she said, pointing towards it.

"Why?"

"Because there's something interesting in there, I can sense it."

Shrugging, Kitakami followed Kiso into the store. A sword shop, to be exact. Surprise surprise. The proprietor didn't even look up from the newspaper he was reading, and Kiso began examining the blades on the walls, muttering under her breath and occasionally clicking her tongue. Kitakami, for her part, quickly found herself bored, and drifted over to the barrels full of swords tucked towards the back, each with a sign saying "¥50,000". Her fingers ghosted over the hilts, occasionally picking one up; an ornamental sword for her room seemed like a good idea, and gave her a backup weapon in case of Ooi.

None stood out, but then her fingers brushed a hilt that had her newfound instincts screaming danger at her. She quickly drew her hand back as if scalded, and noted a surprised and worried jerk from the owner in her peripheral vision.

"Hey, Kiso!" she called out. "Come take a look at this one!"

Her sister glanced over, and sheathed the blade in her hands with a grunt of disgust before placing it back on the wall. "What've you got for me?" she asked once she was at the barrel.

Gingerly, Kitakami pointed at the offending blade, and with a puzzled look at her sister, Kiso reached forward to grasp-

"Hey, don't touch that!" the owner barked in the first overt sign of life he'd shown.

Kiso ignored him, instead grasping the blade and pulling it out. Kitakami's eyes widened at the sight; even to her untrained eyes, the sword was gorgeous and just _looked_ sharp. What was it doing in a ¥50,000 bargain barrel?

"This sword's bewitched," Kiso remarked, her face deadly serious, prompting Kitakami to start staring at her instead.

The owner, halfway from around the counter, blinked in surprise. "You've heard of it?"

"No. I can just tell."

The owner clucked his teeth before leaning back against the counter. "Good instincts. That blade's an excellent one, practically a masterpiece, but it's cursed. Every swordsman who's wielded it has died a gruesome, painful, and above all violent death, and believe you me, it's had a lot of wielders in its 500-year life."

Well, that was unpleasant, and Kitakami was ready to just get Kiso to put the sword back, leave this shop, and pretend it never existed. So of course, Kiso was now grinning like the crazy person she was, and the torpedo cruiser stepped back to let her sister work out the problem herself.

"Well, in that case," she said, adjusting her grip on the sword. "Let's do a little test, shall we? My luck versus this sword's curse." And with that, the light cruiser tossed the blade into the air - and then held out her arm into its path, the blade spinning end over end.

"What the- Kiso!" Kitakami exclaimed.

"Don't do it, you'll lose your arm!" the owner shouted. "That blade's razor sharp!"

Everyone present watched, ready to flinch back from the inevitable arterial spray. The sword reached Kiso's arm - and then somehow, clear only to Kitakami's eyes, it flipped just _inches_ from Kiso's arm before thunking into the wooden floor.

"I'll take it!" Kiso proudly announced, her unblemished arm on display.

*WHUMP!*

The light cruiser blinked as the owner fainted, then glanced at the sword stuck in the floor. "Well, great. Now how am I going to buy this? And I don't even know its name!"

"I don't think that's the biggest problem," Kitakami muttered.

~o~

William D. Porter stared at the stuffed monkey's paw in her hand. Nicholas and De Haven and all the rest were all telling her the near miss with Northampton's fairy was not her fault, that most anyone would've done the same thing. And in her head, the destroyer knew they were right. But that didn't stop the guilt hammering in her chest, or the flashes of fairy slurry that popped in her head nearly at random. Hence the monkey's paw.

"I wish..." she said, her voice still raw. "I wish I wasn't such a screwup!"

There was no flash of light, no indication that anything had happened. And then brown hair cascaded onto her lap.

"Eh?" William D. Porter squeaked as she reached up and rubbed her pool ball-smooth scalp, then glanced behind her at her braid sitting forlornly on the sheets. "Eh?!"

Before Willie D. could finish processing this odd turn of events, a Re-class battleship dropped in from the vents. And from the shell that she only barely ducked under, this was _not_ one of the Allied Abyssals. Screaming, Willie D. threw a backhanded slap that felt like hitting Jello, and when she opened her eyes there was merely a bloody smear against the wall where the Abyssal had been.

Slowly, the destroyer looked down at her bloodstained hands.

 _"WHAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?!"_

~o~

"Goddammit, Valiant!" Warspite shouted as her 2-pounder guns hosed down a group of mummies, the explosive shells turning them into dust and linen scraps. "You just had to take that necklace!"

"But it's sooo pretty," her sister whined, crushing two preserved skulls beneath her hands.

"Yes, well, it was also cursed!" Queen Elizabeth snapped, her 4.5" guns barking at the entrance to the chamber. "And what the hell did you need that stone slab for?"

"It just called to me!"

 _"Return the slaaaaab..."  
_  
All three battleships shivered at the sound, two dozen 15" guns roaring at once towards the source.

"Could you at least leave the slab behind?" Warspite groused. "I don't know what that thing'll do if it catches us, but I'd rather not find out!"


	417. Rule 1478

**Rule 1478. While taking, using or handling the personal effects of any other member of the base without their permission is a serious offense, the consequences of doing so with Kongou or Hibiki's drink of choice will be it's own punishment.**

"Alright," Mackerel said as she surfaced in Yokosuka harbor. "You get the plan, right?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Favorite barked in a still-distinct French accent. With that, she reached into the bag she'd dragged with her and pulled out several bottles of vodka.

"Good," the American submarine nodded. "Now, go!"

The two submarines clambered onto shore, one heading for the destroyer dorms and the other heading for officer's country.

~o~

Well away from the harbor, a certain battleship girl slumbered next to her Admiral, dreaming of latex and whipped cream and-

...

Okay, let's not get into too much detail here. This is still an SFW board. _Anyway_ , the point is, it was a very pleasant dream, and one she wanted to keep going as long as possible. Which, of course, meant that a bunch of Mohawk Indians that bore an uncanny resemblance to your average Bostonian burst into the scene, crates of tea borne under their arms. Dream-Kongo stared at the scene for a long second, and then real-Kongo sat bolt upright in bed, her gaze going straight towards the cabinet where she kept her tea. The cabinet that was now _wide open_.

Eyes narrowing, the battleship stepped out of bed, and then vanished. Admiral Goto, for his part, merely let out an annoyed grunt and rolled over on their bed.

In another dorm on the other side of the base, a certain destroyer girl slumbered in a cuddle pile with her sisters. Besides being warm and adorable, it helped keep the nightmares away. Right now, her sleep was dreamless, as she usually liked it.

Then the sound of a creaking board penetrated her consciousness. Her sleepy brain tried to ignore it, only for her threat responses to start screaming at her. Finally, and with great reluctance, she sat up, ignoring Ikazuchi's whined protests as she moved out of her sister's grip. Her gaze darted to the loose floorboard next to their bed. The loose floorboard that was currently a lot more than loose. In fact it was actually completely removed from the floor.

Pulling out of the cuddlepile, she padded over, and reached in to pull out a bottle. It was vodka, just like what she usually kept. Well, except for one minor detail.

"Fucking Polish swill!" she hissed under her breath in Russian, resisting the urge to hurl the bottle against the nearest wall with tremendous force. That would wake up her sisters. Still, someone needed to pay and, grabbing two bottles, Hibiki opened the window and hopped out.

~o~

"You got it?" Mackerel asked as she dropped the last crate of tea onto the pier.

"Yup!" Favorite chirped, pulling out the bottles. "So, what're we gonna do with this stuff?"

"Well, the vodka's for drinking," the American submarine answered, before nudging a crate towards the water with her foot. "But this? Into the harbor!"

"Awright!" Favorite enthusiastically cheered, grabbing a crate and then hurling it as hard as she could.

To the two boats' shock, Kongo suddenly appeared out of thin air in a silky, lace-trimmed, and rather short nightgown right in front of the crate of tea, catching it and then skidding to a halt on the water.

"Uh-oh," both subs chorused.

"Da."

Favorite and Mackerel whirled around, and had just enough time to take in Hibiki's aggravated expression before both of them had bottles of Polish vodka shoved in their mouths. Almost immediately, both began struggling as the vodka burned its way down their throats, blocking any passage of air. And the taste was just _awful_. Unfortunately, outmuscled and with no leverage, the alcohol passed down unimpeded, and when the destroyer pulled out the two empty bottles, both collapsed to the ground, looking distinctly green around the gills. Reaching down, Hibiki applied her coup de grace: a pair of chemo-strength anti-nausea meds.

"Oh, that's evil," Kongo remarked as she hopped back up onto the pier. "I approve."

"I didn't want them vomiting it up," Hibiki said. "Leave them?"

Kongo hummed as she loaded up her tea. "Eh, it's what they deserve."

Mackerel's and Favorite's groans indicated what they thought of this plan, but they were also in no position to make their opinions heard.


	418. Rule 1479

**Rule 1479. As Yamato enters her third trimester, take even greater care not to make her angry. The last person to call her a hotel is STILL in the ICU.  
**  
"Alright," Gneisenau said as she lowered her binoculars. "Enterprise is definitely out. From what I could read of Yamato's lips, she's in the Philippines right now."

"Excellent," Malaya nodded. "Kongo and Yahagi have been successfully distracted. That boyish American submarine was disturbingly easy to coerce into it."

"Yeah, Harder's like that," Gneisenau remarked. "Alright, you know the plan, right?"

"Call out Yamato, and _very politely_ invite her to a shooting competition with our sisters," Malaya stated, frowning. "But... how are you planning to call her out?"

"Easy!" Gneisenau chirped, standing up out of the bush they were hiding behind, much to the alarm of her companion. "Hey, Hotel-chan!"

"What are you doing?!" the British battlewagon hissed, grabbing her German counterpart's shirt.

"Yamato can't resist being called a hotel, everyone knows that!" Gneisenau answered. "Oh, look, there she is!"

Malaya followed Gneisenau's line of sight, and only barely managed to avoid pissing herself. Yamato, now very clearly well into her third trimester, was stalking up to them, anger literally roiling off of her in waves. The battleship glanced up at Gneisenau, seeing that the German was somehow _completely overlooking_ all that.

Well. If there was any evidence needed that Gneisenau was as nutty as her big sister, there it was. With the German battlecruiser sufficiently occupied, Malaya began to slink away.

 _'Better you than me,'_ she thought to herself.

She didn't get very far before Gneisenau spoke up in greeting. "Hey, Yamato! Sorry about the whole hotel thing, but I needed to talk to you about-"

*SNAP*

Malaya winced at the sound of snapping bone, followed shortly by a cry of "AUGH, WHY?!". Well, that fit the aura that had been surrounding Yamato. The battleship continued to crawl away, even as the sounds of a thoroughly one-sided beatdown, joined by Gneisenau's pained screams, wafted through the trees. And she picked up the pace when a single 5.9" gun mount landed not six inches from her face and bounced into the underbrush.

~o~

Akashi stared at the full list of injuries on Gneisenau's medical report. Despite compiling it herself, it was still shocking, and not just because Gneisenau was still alive. The battlecruiser in question was trussed up in a full-body cast and lying immobilized in a healing chamber the Yuubaris had dug out of somewhere, working to repair her severe fractures in all four limbs, seven broken ribs and shattered clavicle, variety of burns and lacerations on her torso, strained muscles, crush damage, and infected bite. At least, enough to get her into a dock for a proper repair. Looking over that last injury again, she turned a questioning look towards Yamato.

"There was a nesting goose..." the battleship mumbled, clearly mortified, her head held in her hands.

The repair ship nodded, summed up the injuries, and made her diagnosis.

"Well, normally, we'd be looking at a recovery time of one month just to get her into the docks," Akashi said, prompting Yamato to sink even deeper into her seat. Somehow. "If the Yuubaris' healing engine works as advertised, that should be cut down to a week."

The only reply was a muffled... noise.

"Also," Akashi continued. "I've prescribed you some birth-control pills that should hopefully help regulate your hormones."

Another muffled noise.

"And I've authorized some leave for Enterprise."

The muffled noise was this time rather distressed.

"Look, Yamato," Akashi sighed, putting down her clipboard. "I can't have you hiding in here for the next week, and I don't think anyone really blames you. Not even Scharnhorst is mad, for Pete's sake!"

"That's just because she's busy researching the, and I quote, 'neoliberal conspiracy to collapse the new Soviet Union through meme magic'," Yamato groaned.

It took a moment for Akashi's train of thought to get back on track after hearing that. "Not the point, which is that she's not mad. Just... if you're going to hide, do it somewhere else, okay?"

Nodding, Yamato stood up and waddled out of the ward - and from what Akashi heard, was immediately accosted by Enterprise.

"Okay," she said, turning back to the healing engine. "Let's make sure you don't blow up in my face, possibly literally."


	419. Rule 1480

**Rule 1480. Bribing Hibiki to do your chores with vodka isn't allowed.  
**  
Ikazuchi groaned as she looked at her assigned chores for the next day, listening with half an ear to the grumbling complaints - and in the case of Take, not grumbled at all - of her fellow destroyers. She was on laundry duty, and she _hated_ laundry duty. Those machines were cursed, no matter what Kirishima said!

Scanning down the list, she noticed that Hibiki was on gardening duty, which the snow-haired destroyer tolerated but Ikazuchi loved. Still, Hibiki was none too fond of laundry duty herself, so an appropriate bribe would have to be found.

Memorizing the timing of both hers and Hibiki's chores, Ikazuchi slipped out of the crowd. She knew exactly where to find the right bribe.

Shortly thereafter, she found herself outside the room the three unattached Myoko sisters lived in. Contrary to popular belief, Junyo was _not_ the right person to go to for alcohol. She guarded it with all the diligence and ferocity of a dragon guarding its horde. As for Hayashimo... well, let's just say that the rumors were the subject of many a sleepover scary story. No, Nachi was a far easier target.

Sneaking in was little difficulty. All she needed to do was nicely ask Haguro to let her in, and then the room dividers and her own hold would take care of things. The heavy cruiser's stash was, thankfully, exactly where Hibiki had said it would be: tucked in the back of her closet behind several heavy winter coats.

"Sake... sake... sake... dammit, doesn't she drink anything else?" Ikazuchi muttered as she rummaged through.

"Did you find what you needed?" Haguro called out.

"Not yet!"

"Take your time!"

"Come on, you little..." the destroyer muttered as she went back to work, eyes lighting up as she found what she was looking for. "Ah-ha!"

Grabbing the bottle and stashing it, she dashed out the door, barely pausing long enough to say goodbye to Haguro, and built to flank speed straight towards Desdiv 6's shared room. Skidding to a halt in front of the door, she reached out to open it - and then halted as the sound of snapping bone and pained howls rang out from inside.

Slowly, and with great trepidation, Ikazuchi eased the door open, seeing Hatsuyuki clutching her hand, all the fingers on the limb pointing in the wrong direction. A bottle of vodka was held in Hibiki's hands.

"Did you really think you could bribe me with _French_ vodka?" Hibiki said, shaking her head. "I wouldn't feed this swill to a _pig_ , let alone drink it. The French should really stick to absinthe and wine, they're better at it."

At a thought, Ikazuchi's fairies helpfully informed her that the vodka she was carrying was Russian.

"Now get out of here before I tell Fubuki."

That was Ikazuchi's cue to step back and let Hatsuyuki burst out of the room and run past her, still clutching her hand.

"So, what was that all about?" she asked as she stepped in.

"Nothing important," Hibiki stated. "Where were you?"

For a long moment, the destroyer debated trying her plan, which was looking less sound by the minute. "Well..." she hedged. "I was thinking of getting you a birthday present, but I don't have a good eye for alcohol, so..." She pulled out the bottle she'd nicked from Nachi's stash. "Is this stuff any good?"

Hibiki took one look at the label and grimaced like she'd just bit into a raw garlic clove. "No. Is shit."

"Good to know!" Ikazuchi chirped, stashing the bottle away for later resale to Junyo. Waste not, want not, after all, and she much preferred working the laundry machines to broken fingers.


	420. Rule 1487

**Rule 1487. If a destroyer is going through their "change", send them to either the cruiser that oversees them or to a trained medical professional. Not to one of the Mad Scientist Brigade, the Iowa sisters or the Kongo sisters.  
**  
"JERSEEEEEEYYYYYY!"

New Jersey immediately reversed course and sprinted for the destroyers of Taffy 3, all of whom were looking frantic. Heermann and Hoel were dragging an utterly mortified Johnston between them, and the battleship's mind skipped a beat at that. Johnston just didn't feel shame. It was an utterly alien expression on her face.

"What's wrong?" she barked.

Hoel looked away, not wanting to meet Jersey's eyes, and Heermann jabbed an elbow in her last sister's ribs, causing her to jump. No answer was forthcoming from Johnston, though, and finally Hoel grimaced and spoke up.

"S-She's, uh, b-bleeding." At the raised eyebrow from their momboat, Hoel elaborated. "Y'know, _down there._ "

Jersey blinked, and then her eyes widened. "Aw, _fuck_ ," she groaned, palming her face. "Puberty."

All three destroyers exchanged another uneasy glance. "So, I'm _not_ dying?" Johnston asked, with only a bit of shakiness in her voice.

"Oh, fuck no," New Jersey immediately denied. "But, uh... shit, I'm terrible at this. Look, there are some things that you guys need to know to handle this, and I am _not_ the right person for that."

"JOHNSTON!"

The gathered shipgirls all yelped and jumped back as Kongo landed before them, a sunny grin on her face. "I am so pleased to hear that you are going through your Maidens' Springtime of Youth!" she declared, a sunset with crashing waves appearing behind her right in the middle of the concrete hall.

"Her _what?!"_ Hoel, Heermann, and New Jersey demanded as one.

Kongo opened her mouth to reply-

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Only for Hiei to fly out of nowhere to slam her feet into the side of Kongo's head and send her flying into the far wall.

"Hiei, you traitor!" Kongo called back after a moment to extract herself from the shattered concrete.

"Dammit, sis, you know you're not allowed to make that speech anymore!" Hiei shot back.

The silence from Kongo's end of the hall was damning.

"Right," Hiei sighed in relief, before bowing to New Jersey and her destroyers. "I'm terribly sorry about the disturbance, and wish you good luck with The Talk." And with that, she left.

"... Alright," Jersey said after a few minutes of slack jaws. "Let's pretend that never happened, okay?"

"Agreed," Taffy 3 chorused.

"Fan-fucking-tastic. Now, let's go talk to Missouri about this, 'cause like I said, I am _terrible_ at this."

~o~

"Yes, you did well coming to me," Missouri said, leaning over to grab something under her bed. "Let me get some visual aids..."

As her younger sister began pulling out a box, New Jersey's eyes widened. She knew that box, and what was in it, and she was _not_ having her destroyers exposed to it.

"Time to go," she muttered out the corner of her mouth, the destroyers nodding assent.

Though they managed to sneak out of the room just fine, that left Jersey with a dilemma. Wisconsin was on sortie, no way was she asking Iowa for help on this, and that left her precious few options for something like this sort of thing.

"Congratulations!"

"Son of a bitch, is everyone gonna sneak up on us today?!" Jersey swore, whirling around to glare at Phoenix. "Whaddya want?"

"W-Well, uh, I was just wondering if you could consent to letting us study Johnston," Phoenix replied, taking a nervous step back. "There's just so little data on shipgirl pu-"

That was as far as she got before Jersey's foot collided with her chest.

"Nice," Hoel said, watching the light cruiser fly through the wall and arc towards the ocean. "I'd give it an 8, with the possibility of an 8.5 depending on the landing."

"I aim to please," Jersey grinned, bowing. Straightening, she considered her options, and resisted the urge to sigh. Nothing for it, then. "C'mon, guys, we're going to talk to Iowa."

~o~

Two hours later, Hoel, Johnston, and Heermann stumbled out of Iowa's room, wide-eyed but still apparently sane.

"So..." Jersey prompted.

"That was... she was really blunt," Heermann said, still in somewhat of a daze.

"But really thorough, too," Hoel added, shuddering. "Though I could've done without the condom demonstration."

"This is gonna suck, isn't it?" Johnston asked miserably.

New Jersey cast her mind back to the younger of her crew, some of whom were still going through puberty when they served on her. "Yes. Yes it is."


	421. Rule 1488

**Rule 1488: No, playing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion on a loop is not a valid form of punishment.  
**  
Deep beneath Yokosuka base, Ooyodo and Atago walked down a blank concrete corridor, their shoes clicking on the artificial stone.

"So, you said you had something interesting for me?" the heavy cruiser chirped.

"Yes," Ooyodo said, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Kiso captured a new Abyssal type a yesterday while doing a deep torpedo strike. We have reason to believe this new Abyssal, tentatively classified as the Na-class, is some sort of command cruiser for the Abyss. I'm sure you can understand what a potential intelligence coup this is."

"Yup!"

Soon, the two cruisers reached a small cell, and Atago peered in to the Abyssal chained to the floor. It had a strong resemblance to a Ne-class cruiser with its armaments stripped off, the only major changes being a pair of glasses and a collander helmet with two antenna sticking out.

"So, it had some light guns and a bunch of antennas instead of its usual gun/torpedo mix, I'm guessing?" Atago asked.

"Yes."

Atago nodded, and snapped her fingers. "Send in Hosho!"

~o~

"Mou!" Atago huffed, her cheeks twisting into an annoyed pout. "She's a tough one!"

Hosho's motherly disposition and absolutely delicious mushroom fried rice had failed to put a dent in the command cruiser's walls. Kagero's inane rambling, Tatsuta's threats, Yuubari's devices, and even Fubuki's own methods had utterly failed to crack her. Atago nodded to the destroyer as she left, and turned her mind back to the problem. It looked like she'd need to dip into her worst tricks to pull this off. Still, no reason to go completely inhumane; Iku would sadly have to wait a little longer. That also eliminated some of the... other songs on her playlist.

Turning on the microphone, she tapped on the glass. "Pan-Paka-Paaaan!" she announced, getting the attention of the Abyssal cruiser. "I must say, you've been impressive! Which is why I'm telling you that this is your last chance to talk before I break out the big guns!"

The very mature response of the command cruiser was to stick out her tongue at Atago.

"Suit yourself!" And with that, Atago pressed a button, the speakers in the interrogation room playing a familiar few chords.

Ooyodo frowned, pressed her ear to the glass, and then recoiled as if it was on fire. "You're a monster and you're going straight to hell," she spat at Atago.

"Thank you!" Atago chirped.

"I'll tell Admiral Goto."

"Go ahead."

"... I'll tell Langley."

Groaning, Atago tapped another button. "There, happy?" she grumped.

Ooyodo pressed her ear to the glass again - and then fairly threw herself back.

"Okay, okay, you can go back to the Celine Dion!" she yelped. "Just turn off the LMFAO!"

Atago went back to smiling, and switched back to 'My Heart Will Go On - Ten Hour Version'. "So," she said conversationally. "How long do you think it'll be until she cracks?"


	422. Rule 1495

**Rule 1495. Following last week's incident, we have seen fit to correct certain rumours surrounding the Light Cruiser Aurora.  
**  
"Alright, you dipshits," South Dakota said into the camera Los Angeles was holding up. "After what happened last week - and just FYI, Tuscaloosa, you should _not_ be able to do that with rose stems - it's clear that we've got some myths to be busted."

"We're not Adam Savage and Jamie Hynemann, but we'll do our best," Phoenix picked up, before reaching to the side and pulling someone into the camera view. "And now, our special guest and test subject, Aurora!"

"Wait, test subject?" the dark-haired cruiser protested as she was parked in front of Phoenix.

"Don't worry, the tests will be entirely non-invasive."

Aurora's expression was dubious, but she took a deep breath and continued. "Now, not all of these can be scientifically tested, and those are for the Admiralty to handle." With that, she glared into the camera. "But I'm going to tell you right now: you leave Katerina out of this! She's a nice bear who'd never hurt a fly!"

"Aaand... cut!" Los Angeles announced. "Alright, we went a bit off-script here, but a bit of improvisation never hurt anyone. Let's get to the testing area."

As the heavy cruiser packed up her equipment, Aurora turned a grateful smile to the two mad scientists. "Thanks for this, you two. After what happened in Norfolk..."

"No problem," South Dakota said, slapping her on the back. "Just, uh, stay away from Missouri. She has... issues with communism. Of the screaming irrational variety."

"Noted."

~o~

Several minutes later, the shipgirls were parked on the North Island airfield, Aurora's rigging summoned.

"Alright, we're here on North Island to test the first of the Aurora myths," South Dakota spoke. "Namely, that she can summon Communist revolutions by firing blank shells at a country's coastline."

"As such, Aurora has her guns loaded up with blanks," Phoenix continued. "Given the circumstances of the Russian Revolution, we'll only be firing one salvo. Aurora?"

"Ready!"

Pedestal-mounted 6" guns on her rigging swung out, zero-elevation aiming for the shore of the island. As one, eight guns barked, the shells kicking up sand and concrete dust a second later.

For several minutes, Phoenix and South Dakota stood on the tarmac, checking their phones, but they eventually stowed them.

"Well, no reports of a Communist uprising, so I'd say that's busted!" Phoenix declared.

~o~

"Vive la Revolution!" USS Forster announced, wearing her Maoist uniform and waving the hammer and sickle. "Death to the capitalist pig-dogs!"

"Yeah!" the rest of Norfolk's destroyer escorts chorused in support.

"What the hell is going on!" the rest of the base's shipgirls screamed as they ran away.

~o~

"Myth #2!" South Dakota announced. "Aurora is fueled by vodka!"

"This one actually has some basis in fact," Phoenix said. "Steam boilers are pretty hardy when it comes to what they burn. And the older boilers even more so."

A bottle fell between their feet, a slightly tipsy Aurora wobbling up between them.

"Gimme a sec..." she muttered, closing her eyes and concentrating. Before the viewers' eyes, all signs of drunkenness receded, and she stood straight again. "Okay. I burned it, but I got maybe an hour's cruising out of it."

"So, confirmed but useless?" Phoenix asked.

"Sounds about right," South Dakota nodded.

"Myth #3, then," the light cruiser continued. "Iowa, you're up!"

Nothing happened. As Phoenix and Aurora glanced around in confusion, South Dakota sighed, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted "IOWA! YOU'RE UP!"

A shack nearby exploded into wooden splinters, a grumpy-looking Iowa stepping out of the wreckage. "You called?" she grunted.

"Yup!" South Dakota chirped, putting her hand on Aurora's back and shoving her forward. "Iowa, Aurora. Aurora, Iowa. Don't worry, she doesn't bite."

"Ah, you're the damn Russkie," the battleship said, putting a hand forward. "Good to fucking meet ya!"

"You're... fine with Russians?" Aurora asked as she took and shook.

"Meh, you guys're fine. I always hated the fucking Lebanese more," Iowa stated. "Or, well, New Jersey does. I mean, fuck, whenever we're walking I hear her humming 'I bomb Beirut' just at random. Weirdest fucking thing."

"Well, considering the world's still turning, I'd say #3 is busted, too," South Dakota said into the camera.

"We'll see you in a bit for the last one!"

~o~

Several minutes later, the group was parked back in downtown San Diego, Aurora nowhere to be seen. Behind them was a band, playing a very familiar tune.

"Myth #4 was that playing _Internationale_ would summon Aurora," South Dakota stated. "And considering we've been playing this for three minutes, I'd say this is busted."

"And that's a wrap!" Phoenix declared. "Like we said, clear up the rest with your CO, and for God's sake, don't react like that to the Russians again. Cottage cheese should not be used that way!"


	423. Rule 1498

**New** **Rule 1498. It is wrong to taunt ship girls in bad weather conditions with selfies of you on a beach in Hawaii.  
**  
One of the more underreported divides between shipgirls was the weather divide. Shipgirls posted in San Diego, Dakar, Buenos Aires, Toulon, Taranto, Alexandria, and Izmir enjoyed the mild seas, sunny skies, and balmy temperatures of the central Pacific, South Atlantic, and Mediterranean. Brest, Portsmouth, Scapa Flow, Norfolk, Wilhelmshaven, and Bremerton, meanwhile, got to deal with North Atlantic swells, Bering winter storms, and the ice-choked Barents. This was, naturally, the source of a good deal of good-natured ribbing and resigned acceptance between the various fleets, though it never got out of hand.

Astutue readers will notice that no mention of Yokosuka was made in the previous paragraph. That's because the Japanese naval base was in the interesting situation of covering _two_ different axes: north through the Bering straight, and south towards Southeast Asia. And what was good-natured ribbing or acceptance at other bases was a rather more toxic frustration egged on by outright trolling.

Case in point, Tatsuta shivering as she led a mix of Kamikaze and Matsu-class destroyers in close escort of a convoy through the swells of the Bering Sea. It was cold, it was raining, and the waves were outright mountainous. In short, it was miserable. At least there weren't any Abyssals around; that would have been the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

Then her phone buzzed in her pocket, and Tatsuta re-evaluated that. Pulling it out, she saw it was a text from her sister, Tenryuu. It was a picture text, a selfie of her sitting on a beach chair on a sandy beach, wearing sunglasses and her usual white bikini, a fruity drink held in one hand with the straw in her mouth.

As Tatsuta's hand began quivering, an actual text message popped up below the picture.

 _'Two-day downtime before we head back to Yokosuka!1!'_ it said, followed shortly by _'Love my girls!❤❤❤'_ and then _'#Filipinobeachesbestbeaches'.  
_  
Suddenly, Tatsuta was aware of a grinding noise. Where was it coming from? Nobody was reporting any turbine trouble.

Oh, wait, it was her teeth. That probably wasn't good.

Her phone helpfully informed her of one last text, and she glanced down.

 _'PS Tatsuta this is for the dress and Yamato's ceremony'  
_  
Her grip now cracking the screen of her phone, Tatsuta very calmly and carefully pocketed the device, her face twisted into the serene smile so many had come to fear, and she reached back and pulled out her naginata. As if on cue, a Ma-class submarine surfaced, gun barrel two inches from the light cruiser's head.

"Yes," Tatsuta purred. "You'll do nicely."

The Abyssal only had time for a shiver of fear, and then Tatsuta was on her.

~o~

Meanwhile, on a beach in the Philippines, Tenryuu put her own phone away and let a smug grin spread across her face as she relaxed on the beach chair. Goddamn, but did she love her girls, finishing their mission a full two days ahead of schedule. Granted, that meant they were enjoying the services of the masseuses in the resort's spa instead of relaxing on the beach with her, but that was fun, too. She also made a mental note to thank Uranami for the lessons in anchor combat; some of the moves Ikazuchi had pulled were trade secrets of the younger Fubuki.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Tenryuu pulled her glasses down to see two young, fit Filipino men standing over her, looking hopeful. The light cruiser let her eyes roam over their bodies, well-tanned from the sun and covered only by European-style swim trunks, shorter and tighter than the usual American board shorts.

 _'Me like,'_ she decided.

"Yes?" she replied in passable Tagalog.

"W-Well, we, uh, we noticed you were sitting here all by yourself," one of them said nervously. "A-And we were wondering if you wanted some, uh, company?"

A grin spread over Tenryuu's face, and she retrieved her phone again. "Of course," she said, adding a bit of a sultry lilt to her voice. Standing, she stepped close to the two men. "I just need you to do one thing for me."

Both men gulped. "W-What is it?" the other one asked.

"Smile!"

And with that, she turned around, held up her phone, and took another selfie.

~o~

Tatsuta, panting and covered in black ichor, gave the mangled Ma-class submarine another kick in the side, and took the opportunity to see what was happening. Harukaze and Take had taken charge of the escort, and were quite efficiently massacring the Abyssal attackers. And she didn't miss the awestruck glances Take kept shooting her way.

Well, things were well in hand, and she'd mostly expended her black rage, so now she could go back to-

Tatsuta twitched as her phone buzzed again. In spite of her desire not to look, she retrieved it, looked at the screen - and it took everything she had to not scream at the picture of her sister now adding two handsome men to her impromptu beach vacation.

Now, an interesting fact about Tatsuta was that her anger ran cold, and only got hot if it was _really_ bad. Tenryuu and Desdiv 6 only spoke in hushed whispers of the few times that had happened. And now, several more destroyers were about to get a good look.

"Ufufufufufufu..." she chuckled. "Uhahahahahahahahahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Another Abyssal, this time a Ri-class heavy cruiser, popped up out of the water, fists reared back to punch.

"Screw off, you mewling bitch of a cunt!" Tatsuta snarled at it. "No one asked you!"

The heavy cruiser paused, looked around, and then pointed quizzically at itself.

"Do you see any _other_ scantily-clad punch girls around here?" was Tatsuta's reply. "Oh, screw this."

And with that, she hurled her phone at the Abyssal's head, and then pounced with her naginata.


	424. Rule 1500

**Rule 1500. By popular request, casual Fridays are now implemented. Just make sure you actually wear appropriate clothes.  
**  
Shimakaze gazed into the mirror as she gave her jacket a quick fluff. The destroyer, taking advantage of the recent adoption of casual Fridays, was clad not in her usual outfit, but a plain grey hoodie over a polka-dot cami, as well as a ruffled purple skirt that just obscured the top of her usual stockings. Her bunny-ear hair ribbon, naturally, was also still in place.

Satisfied she had her look down right, she turned around to see what her sisters were doing - and promptly, and loudly, smacked her forehead.

Soyokaze caught the eye first, clad as she was in an eclectic and eye-searing mix of purple leggings, a bright-orange, midriff-baring tube top, and then a green... sleeve-collar thing with a half cape. Add in a pair of those toed, flexible running shoes, a bunch of cheap, gaudy rings on her fingers, and pince-nez glasses, the flighty destroyer looked utterly _ridiculous.  
_  
Not that the rest of her sisters were any better. Ookaze was just standing there in a surprisingly frilly and black set of underwear, and Kiyokaze was wearing a child's sundress that was sadly rather too small.

"Soyokaze always travels in style!" the destroyer announced.

"Oi..." Shimakaze groaned.

"What's wrong?" Ookaze asked, looking herself over. "Sendai said this is standard for night battles."

Shimakaze made a note to murder Sendai in her sleep the first chance she got. "And you, Kiyokaze? What's your excuse?" she said, lifting her head out of her hands.

"Uh, it shrank in the wash," she said, kicking at the tatami mats. "And I don't really own anything else casual."

"Well, that's something I can fix!" Shimakaze declared, smiling, as she led Kiyokaze over to her own wardrobe. "And as for you two-" Ookaze and Soyokaze both flinched as their big sister pinned them with an aggravated glare. "If you're not in something that _isn't_ a crime against fashion when I get back, then I will personally have you two assigned as Nagato's cuddle dolls."

Soyokaze gasped in shock, Ookaze spitting out a "You fiend!" Though it must be noted that both scrambled to find new outfits the second Shimakaze turned around again.

~o~

Musashi tugged at her shirt, making sure it was sitting right. A sort of denim zip-up vest, it had two pockets, and was sized and padded appropriately for her bust, though it did allow her midriff to show. The battleship had also turned up the collar. The pants, at least, had been easier to find; they were fairly standard boot-cut jeans that were perhaps a bit tight around the hips. Her usual gloves and mildly heeled boots completed the look.

"Hmm..." she hummed. "So, how do I look?"

"It's missing something," Yamato muttered. The other battleship had considerably less leeway when it came to dress; maternity clothes of her size were hard to come by even in the Netherlands. "I know!"

The battleship ducked back into her closet, and about a minute later came back out holding a leather jacket. "Try it!"

Musashi took the jacket and slipped it on, looking herself over in the mirror. Oh, yes. She looked _badass_.

"I like," she said, grinning.

~o~

"This feels weird," Yukikaze muttered, tugging at the shorts she was wearing as she walked down the paths outside headquarters.

"Agreed," the beskirted Tokitsukaze and Amatsukaze said, trailing after the other destroyer.

Ashigara noted down the destroyers' outfits. Acceptable, if unimaginative. But considering some of the rest of the outfits she'd seen? Unimaginative would be just fine.

"Why Shohou thought her breastband was an acceptable top I have no idea," she muttered.

By far the biggest - and most pleasant - surprises had been Musashi and Shimakaze, whose outfits were noticeably less... stripperiffic than usual, though Musashi's outfit still showed a lot of skin. Those had been the two Admiral Goto had worried about the most, and hopefully that would be enough to let these casual Fridays continue.

Approaching muttering caught her attention, and Ashigara looked up only to choke on her own spit. There, followed by Mutsu and a crowd of muttering destroyers, was Nagato, completely and utterly nude.

"Sister!" Mutsu wailed, dressed in an entirely sensible denim miniskirt and white t-shirt and carrying a small duffle bag over her shoulder and a pair of sweatpants in one hand. "Put some clothes on!"

"Pah! I shall not be embarrassed by the values of the masses!" Nagato declared. "This is casual Friday, and it doesn't get any more casual than this!"

"Auuuuu..."

Sighing, Ashigara dutifully recorded the scene as it passed by. Hopefully this wouldn't deep-six casual Fridays.


	425. Rule 1509

**1509\. Alongside no more using ship girls as the basis of horror stories, the Grey Ghost of the Atlantic stories being used to terrify the U-boats are to stop as well.  
**  
On a pier in Long Beach, California, a blond-haired young woman gazed up at the black and white hull of RMS Queen Mary, before sighing and letting her head fall against the hull. "Alright, sis," she said softly. "Sleep. You deserve it."

Stepping away, she watched, smiling, as a gaggle of elementary-age schoolchildren led by a very stressed-out teacher clambered up the gangplank. One of the few positives of the Abyssal war was an entire generation of children growing up bombarded with images and stories and celebrities of the sea and the ships that sailed it. Many a museum ship - Hornet's old hull came to mind - had been saved by the sudden influx of visitors.

Suddenly, the liner stiffened, some odd awareness lancing through her mind. "Someone's talking about my sister..." she muttered, before grimacing. "No, someone's using my sister to scare someone. And that will not stand!"

~o~

 _'I hate story time,'_ U-460 thought, her cheek twitching.

With only ten Type XIV U-boats available, and quite a lot of young, immature Type VII U-boats, every one of them had to pitch in on various babysitting duties. Including story time. Of course, for U-460, who was something of a literature connoisseur, reading children's books tended to be physically painful, and she wasn't as good at making up stories on the fly as some of her fellow milk cows.

"C'mon, c'mon, story!" one of the gathered U-boats demanded, cutting through her thoughts.

"Story! Story! Story! Story!"

 _'I am not reading another one of those children's 'books'!'_ U-460 furiously thought. _'But what can I tell them about instead? Something that won't force me to spend an hour making up stories about Moses Malone or something!'_ A wicked smile crept across her face as she thought of an idea. _'That'll work.'  
_  
"Alright, settle down, everyone!" she announced, clapping her hands. "It's time for the story!"

The U-boats all settled down, waiting with rapt attention, and U-460 cleared her throat in preparation. "A long time ago, the U-boats roamed happily and freely through the Atlantic. Though some of their prey was too well guarded to attack, most of it was not, and a few daring boats even penetrated the greatest strongholds of the defenders, claiming some of their kind's greatest kills."

"And then the Grey Ghost of the Atlantic appeared."

The U-boats shivered, one brave subgirl asking "T-The what?"

"None of the U-boats of the time ever agreed what it was. Some said it was one of those great greyhounds of the sea, an ocean liner. Others said it was purpose built to taunt and lure them. All they knew was that it was fast. Too fast to ever catch. Even the great packs were unable to corner her, so great was her speed. But that did not stop them from trying."

"And it was in trying that the insidious trap was revealed. In their efforts, the hunters would be left exhausted and strung out, easy prey for the British dogs. And worse, it was later realized that the Ghost carried more dogs, dogs that would strike at the hunters' nests."

"And try as they might, they never, ever stopped her."

The U-boats all shivered. Insidious indeed!

"Of course, that's just what's confirmed. But there are rumors, of an angry spirit that guided the Ghost's actions, of U-boats sunk in myst-"

"And that's quite enough."

U-460 flinched, and turned around to see RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Olympic looming over her, the latter fingering his bronze axe.

"Heard you were talking shit," he growled, prompting some of the older U-boats in the room to swoon. "Like I wouldn't find out."

"We need to talk," Queen Elizabeth added, slapping a vice grip on U-460's shoulder.

"Meep."


	426. Rule 1513

**1513\. To all shipgirls, we are now banning all Hot Pepper Challenges on all the bases.  
**  
"Hello, everyone, it's the fleet's idol, Naka-chan!" the light cruiser in question chirped, flashing a V-sign to the camera. "You begged. You pleaded. Some of you even started up a Kickstarter, which is sweet, but I do get paid, so kinda pointless. But anyway, yes, today is the day I play Undertale!"

Naka smirked and sat back as her chat practically blew up, footballs flying every which way. Well, footballs, and people spanning "DAISYCONROY!". People who she did not recognize as stream regulars. Her smirk grew even wider as she pulled up a certain video file.

"Whoops, looks like we've got a raid," she stated. "You know what that means!"

And with that, she clicked the video, alarms blaring. "Time for countermeasures."

The alarms ended, and a Cardcaptor Sakura fight scene began playing - only with Naka's Twitch avatar crudely pasted over her face. After a minute of hilarity, the video ended on its usual "Thanks for the raid!" message. "Now, with that out of the way, we can begin the second part of this stream!" She smirked again. "You see, to make this a little more fun, I decided to also do the hot pepper challenge."

Reaching under her desk, she pulled out the pepper in question. It was a red, lumpy pod with a tail-like extension. "I got this baby from North Carolina. Don't know what it's called, or why she was trying to hold in laughter when she sent it, but she assured me it was hot!" Noting the panicked reactions of the chat, she shrugged and ignored them. They panicked about _everything_. "Now, normally, I'd have some milk or beer on hand just in case, but look at this!" She held up the pepper again, giving it a little shake. "It's so... tiny! And wrinkled!"

"How bad could it be?"

~o~

"AGH I REGRET EVERYTHING!"

Five minutes later, Naka's viewers were treated to the sight of the Fleet's Idol writing on the ground, clutching her throat and scraping her tongue across the probably none-too-clean carpet.

"I'M SORRY I REPENT I'LL LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE VOCALOID DISCOGRAPHY I'LL SHAVE MY HAIR I'LL JOIN SENDAI IN THAT THREESOME SHE KEEPS ASKING FOR JUST MAKE IT STOP!"

The viewers were then treated to Sendai ducking into the room, a shit-eating grin on her face. "Can I get that in writing?" she said.

"YES PLEASE ANYTHING I'M NOT DYING WHY AM I NOT DYING!"

"Be back soon!"

"WHITE PHOSPHORUS ISN'T THIS HOT KILL ME END MY TORMENT!"

Several more minutes were spent with Naka writhing on the floor before Sendai returned, carrying a massive barrel of milk and a piece of paper. Naka immediately lunged for the barrel, panting like a dog gone running in the hot summer, but Sendai effortlessly lifted it out of reach.

"Ah, ah, ah," she scolded, wagging her finger, Naka too incapacitated to do much. "Sign this first, please."

Naka grabbed the paper and offered pen, scrawled a wiggly line on the paper, and grabbed the barrel out of Sendai's hands, tearing it open and dipping her head in, audibly gulping. As she did so, Sendai turned towards the camera, still wearing her shit-eating grin.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you make sure you don't have a Carolina Reaper when doing this challenge."


	427. Rule 1516

**Rule 1516: Do not, under any circumstance, interrupt Ooyodo's free time.  
**  
"... How much of the base is on fire?"

Three years ago that had not been a phrase Goto had expected to say ever, but after taking command of Japan's shipgirl forces after old Admiral Shimada had been cashiered for essentially going insane on duty, it was something he had had to say on almost a monthly basis. Shipgirls.

"Uh, we're not sure," Nagato nervously stated. "A lot, that's all I can tell you."

Raising one eyebrow, Admiral Goto glanced over at the pall of smoke and licking flames rising above a large section of the base. "I can see that," he deadpanned. "Alright, do we know who started this?"

"Er, no, Admiral," Kirishima sheepishly admitted.

"Do we know what _started_ it?"

"Pretty sure it was a cigarette..." Atago mused uncertainly.

Goto sighed, and turned his attention to the _other_ part of the day. Namely, the somewhat traumatized, red-headed destroyer being comforted by her sisters, with a thoroughly steamed Suzukaze and Shigure holding a battered Sendai, and Yuudachi straining to hold Naka off of her sister. "And that situation?" he asked.

His three substitute secretaries shared a look and shrugged helplessly. Sighing, Goto turned back to the scene, trying to divine more meaning from it. He failed. As such, Ashigara walking up to him looking like she knew what she was doing was practically a heaven-sent miracle.

"Well, as it turns out, this entire sordid affair was recorded on Facebook," the heavy cruiser reported. "I expect it to go public soon."

Nagato, Atago, and Kirishima all exchanged nervous looks, before the latter pointed back into headquarters. "Actually, if you don't mind, we can get on top of that...?"

"Go," Goto ordered, shooing them away. They couldn't get away fast enough.

"You miss Oyoodo, don't you," Ashigara divined.

"Sometimes I wish Yonehara hadn't poached you," Goto sighed, before waving at her to go on. "Situation?"

"Ah, yes. I'm sure you're aware that Kawakaze is a bit of a Sendai fangirl."

"A very British understatement, if what I've heard is true," Goto deadpanned. "But continue."

"Anyway, it seems there was a bit of a mixup between the two on night battles," Ashigara said. "Kawakaze expected the usual kind of night battle. Sendai... well, remember Naka's hot pepper livestream?"

Goto paled. "Sendai tried to get her into a threesome with her own sister?!" he demanded.

Ashigara's face told him everything he needed to know. "Things naturally got out of hand from there. I'm not sure on all the details, but-"

Suddenly, Goto's phone buzzed. With a puzzled frown, he fished it out and saw a text from Oyoodo.

 _'Naka probably set the fire.'_ it read. Goto glanced over to the idol, and noted the road flare tucked into the back of her skirt.

"What's wrong?" Ashigara asked. In answer, the Admiral held up his phone, and her eyes widened. "How-!"

"And this is why I can't wait for her to be back."

"Speaking of which, I suspect there's a really good reason why you're not cutting her vacation short," Ashigara remarked.

Goto's phone buzzed again. _'Yes there is'_ it said.

"Yes, there is," the Admiral parrotted, looking wistful. "I remember it like it was yesterday..." After a second, he gave a full-body shudder. "No matter how much I don't want to. Let me put it this way; the consequences of _interrupting_ what little time off she gets are measurably worse than interrupting your and Yonehara's ' _private time_ '. And I've _seen_ what you both did to that Re."

Ashigara's jaw dropped open at that. "Who was the poor bastard who found _that_ out?" she breathed.

"Well, let's just say an Princess-class Abyssal tried to install itself onto Okinawa while she was on vacation there..."


	428. Rule 1522

**Rule 1522: the idiots who shall tease Libeccio and/or any destroyer that the Maestrale-class consider her friends for their 'small fuel tank sizes' shall be used for Roma's pankration training sessions.  
**  
"Roma!"

The Italian battleship in question winced, and then plastered on a mostly-genuine smile as she turned to face the destroyer who'd just called out to her. "Yes, Libeccio?"

"I want you to meet my internet friend!" the destroyer chirped, a gray-haired Japanese shipgirl stepping into view. "Say hi, Kiyoshimo!"

Kiyoshimo didn't say anything, and Roma was treated to a rather uncomfortable couple of minutes as the destroyer examined every inch of her from every angle, rubbing her chin in thought as she did so. "Impressive," she said after a few minutes. "I mean, she's not Musashi, but she's definitely pretty cool."

"Excuse me?!" Libeccio snapped, prompting Roma to raise an eyebrow. The little destroyer was _not_ the type to get snippy like that. "How is Roma less cool than that big-breasted slut?!"

"Slut?!"

"She doesn't even wear a shirt! And I've seen her old videos!"

Roma sighed as the two destroyers descended into childish bickering. Great. Now there were two of them. The arrival of HMS Kimberley was almost a relief; maybe she could break up this little spat, and avoid talking about what the hell kind of videos Libeccio was watching.

Then she opened her mouth.

"Oh, so the small-tank girl found a friend so they could be jealous together, did she?"

Libeccio froze, mid-taunt, and sent a pleading look at Kimberly. "No, it's not like that!" she denied.

"Yeah, of course not!" Kiyoshimo cut in with more heat. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"Moi?" Kimberley said, putting her hand over her noticeably large breasts in a maneuver Kiyoshimo had seen and hated many times before with Mutsu. "I'm HMS Kimberly, sixth of the K class. And I have better range than both of you."

To her dismay, Kiyoshimo couldn't counter that. She didn't know the range of the K class, and from the destroyer's generous assets, it had to be substantial indeed.

"That's what I thought," she purred. "Just give up, both of you. It's sad, seeing you try to achieve something you can't." Her smile became a smirk as Libeccio flinched and drew in on herself. "I'll bet your sisters are laughing-"

"And that's quite enough," Roma cut in, internally smiling at the sudden flash of panic on Kimberley's face. "Kimberley, meet me in the locker room in half an hour. You're helping with my Pankration lessons this week."

"Yes, ma'am," Kimberley squeaked.

"Wait, what's Pankration?" Kiyoshimo whispered in Libeccio's ear as the other two ships traipsed away.

"You'll see," Libeccio eagerly replied. "This is gonna be _fun_."

~o~

"Welcome, everyone!" Roma announced in Taranto's gym. The battleship had changed out of her usual outfit in favor of a black sports bra and black mesh shorts. Beside her, Kimberley was dressed the same and fidgeting uncomfortably. "I see we have some new faces today." Kiyoshimo gave a wave from the back of the gathered crowd, along with a few Italian soldiers. "Anyway, with this many newcomers, we're going to be going over what Pankration is, and one of its most basic techniques."

"Pankration is an ancient Greek sport that's basically MMA, missing strikes with holds," the battleship explained. "It was a staple of the original Olympics, and was picked up and continued by the Romans."

"Now, one of the basic moves is a straight kick to the stomach. I shall demonstrate with my sparring partner."

"Wait, wha-"

Whatever else Kimberley said was lost when Roma's foot planted itself in her gut, sending her breath whooshing out. She fell down to the ground, clutching her gut and curling up into a ball, as Roma demonstrated the stance, standing nearly straight on to Kimberley but with her left side slightly forward, weight on her left leg and arms pressed out, palms open.

"Alright, pick a partner and work on your stances!" Roma barked, relaxing.


	429. Rule 1535

**Rule 1535: Battleships are discouraged from cooking rashers of bacon on their main battery after battle.  
**  
"Ah, that was fun!" Iowa groaned happily as she stretched her remaining arm above her head. The other arm was gone, and that was only the most serious wound Iowa had.

"Fun, she says," New Jersey grumbled good-naturedly, picking at her guns. While battered, she was in significantly better shape than her older sister. "The paint's peeling off my gun barrels."

"Huh, you're right," Iowa noted as she looked over her smoking main gun barrels. A familiar grin spread over her face, and she reached into her hold to retrieve something. "Bacon?"

New Jersey eyed the carved-up slab of cured pork belly, then the gun barrels, and then out at their screen. "Nah, I'll pass," she said, waving her hand. "I'm gonna go get Medusa, get patched up a bit. Don't sink while I'm gone, okay?"

"Your loss." And with that, Iowa tossed the bacon into the air, letting it land and start sizzling on her gun barrels. Some of the throbbing pain of her wounds ebbed away as the smell of cooking bacon assaulted her nostrils. After a few minutes, her extensive experience in cooking told her that it was probably ready, and she reached up for-

*CRUNCH*

Iowa froze with her hand six inches from the gun barrel, which was now being nibbled on by Waller.

"Mm... bacon..." the destroyer muttered.

"The fuck...?" Iowa breathed. "Hey, get the fuck off my guns, you little shit of a meat shield!"

*CRUNCH*

"You gotta be fucking kidding me..." Iowa groaned as Beale latched onto another one of her gun barrels.

*CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH*

"Motherfucker!" the battleship snapped as she found herself with destroyers chewing on each of her gun barrels. "Jersey! Get the fuck over here!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming, keep your shirt on!" New Jersey called out as she steamed up, patches applied to her injuries. Coming in sight, she took one look at the destroyers hanging off of Iowa's turrets, and burst out laughing. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Someone pick up that phone, because I fucking _called it!"  
_  
"You _knew_ this would fucking happen?!" Iowa snapped.

"Well - hahahaha! - of course I did! It - hahahahahaha! - happened to me, too!"

That seemingly mollified Iowa, as she descended into incoherent grumbling. Finally, after several minutes of laughter, New Jersey's gales of laughter started to subside.

"Now that you're not fucking dying or shit, can you tell me how get these little cocksuckers to stop cocksucking my guns?" Iowa grumbled, jabbing her thumb at Waller.

"Give it time..." New Jersey replied - and barely a second later, Waller's jaw tensed, allowing her to outright bite off the end of the gun and drop to the water.

"Thanks for the snack, Iowa!" she called back as she steamed away, giggling.

Iowa paled at the revelation. "Aw, fuck."

~o~

The next day, Iowa staggered out of the elder Kearsarge's clinic, new gun barrels wagging in her gun turrets and looking decidedly haggard.

"Never again," she swore.

As she left, she gave an encouraging nod to Minneapolis as she headed in to get her guns replaced. For some odd reason, that only got a pained whimper from the heavy cruiser.


	430. Rule 1536

**Rule 1536: Shipgirls are to be reminded that by this point repair staff are fluent in at least three languages by now from all the different languages from the number of times we had to shuffle up deployments. They understand you- if you piss them off, and they try and take it out on you with a monkey wrench don't blame us.  
**  
Of the various minor navies of World War II, most hadn't bothered to summon shipgirls, preferring to operate under the umbrella of the larger naval powers. Turkey and Greece, always ready to take potshots at each other, were exceptions, as was the fiercely nationalistic (and desperate for prestige) Argentina. Spain had just... found theirs just milling around outside Seville, and had been tight-lipped ever since about how they'd shown up. And then there was Poland, never quite content to rely entirely on others for its security.

Of course, the Polish shipgirl force was tiny: four destroyers, albeit capable ones, and five submarines. All of them operated alongside the German and British shipgirls in the North Atlantic, and had to be heavily coerced into working with Russia's Baltic Fleet on the occasions they needed to.

Which was why Wicher was in Portsmouth, rather than, say, Gdansk, getting looked at by HMS Resource.

"Kurwa!" she swore as the wrench-wielding repair ship tweaked something not quite right. "Ease up on the wrenching, you quack!" she snapped in Polish.

"Oh, I can do far worse with my wrench," Resource replied, also in Polish.

Wicher promptly paled, especially when the British repair ship flipped her around so that she could see the demented grin she was wearing.

"Kurwa."

~o~

Far away in another ocean, another ship was getting a first-hand lesson in multilinguality. Specifically, Akashi was patching up Boise (on her short tour in the Philippines) in preparation for the repair baths. And, naturally, she twisted her wrench _just_ so-

"Fuck!" Boise swore in English, twitching in discomfort. "Hey, be careful with that thing, you slant-eyed Jap!"

"I don't think your fleetmates would appreciate those sorts of slurs," Akashi replied, also in English, causing the blood to flee Boise's face as fast as it could. "Now, what to do..."

Slowly, Boise turned around to look at Akashi, and immediately regretted the decision. Never before had a monkey wrench seemed so threatening.

"Fuck."

~o~

Vestal sighed as she looked over Shimakaze in her clinic in Bremerton. "What in the world did you do to yourself?" she wondered, wielding her wrench like a surgeon's scalpel.

"Stupid high seas," Shimakaze grumbled. "Stupid I-class, thinking it can outrun me..."

 _'Sea state damage and machinery strain,'_ the repair ship mentally translated as she shifted the position of her wrench, unfortunately twisting it in just the wrong way.

"Kuso!" Shimakaze swore, jumping in place and shivering. "Watch where you're touching, you stupid shipslut!"

"I really don't appreciate being called a slut."

Shimakaze gulped as a palpable aura of menace touched her shoulders and sent shivers down her spine. "Kuso."


	431. Rule 1537

**Rule 1537: Please stop insinuating that Emus and Abyssals are directly related. The Aussies might agree with you, but that doesn't make it true.  
**  
"So, d'you know who the Japanese sent?" Sydney wondered as she and Canberra watched the sea outside the namesake harbor.

"No, now stop asking," Canberra grumped.

A day prior, satellite reconnaissance had indicated signs of an Abyssal landing in New Britain. The initial plan had been for the Australians to charge it all guns blazing, but an F-35 overflight had shown two heavy cruisers accompanying the transports, and with Australia and Hobart busy clearing out an infestation in the Indian ocean and Perth doing a tour in the Med, they were a tad shorthanded for taking on that much force. And so, they had called up the Japanese for assistance.

"Ah, I see them!" Sydney called out.

Canberra pulled out her binoculars and got a good look at their silhouettes, shuddering at the familiarity. Oh, that brought back painful memories. Regardless, she recognized the two, one brown-haired with a blue-white eye and the other black-haired and sparking with electricity. Furutaka and Kako had a well-earned reputation for being tough, scrappy ships that took on any and all Abyssal heavy cruisers, regardless of how most of them outgunned the two shipgirls. Beside them were the destroyers and light cruiser of Desdiv 6.

"That's odd," Canberra remarked, lowering her binoculars. "Why'd they send Desdiv 6? They're an expedition force, not frontline combat."

"Eh, probably couldn't spare anyone else," Sydney answered, shrugging.

Indeed, once the Japanese actually joined them, that was the answer given.

"Normally, I'd object, but my girls can handle themselves," Tenryuu explained, ruffling Akatsuki's hair and drawing out an indignant squawk.

Of course, as fast as everyone wanted to move, there was still planning work to be done, and the Australian tin cans were still in transit from Perth. Furutaka and Kako joined Sydney on a shopping trip while they all waited, while Desdiv 6 joined Canberra on a little trip to a nearby nature preserve, whiling away the hours cooing at the various animals.

"I'm surprised," Tenryuu remarked as Inazuma hugged a wombat. "I thought they would've been more... dangerous."

"Australia's reputation for dangerous wildlife is just a tad overblown," Canberra replied. "You just need to know what you're doing. It's why we have trained staff to supervise." The heavy cruiser took a moment to scan over the destroyers: Akatsuki was playing patty-cake with a kangaroo (and losing), while Hibiki was examining a spider of some kind. And Ikazuchi-

"Shit!"

"What is it?!" Tenryuu barked, grabbing her sword and looking every which way. "Abyssals? Kidnappers? Pedobear?"

"Worse!" Canberra wailed. "Ikazuchi's picking a fight with an emu!"

Tenryuu froze, and silence fell upon the area, broken only by a crow cawing as it flew overhead.

"An emu," the light cruiser finally flatly stated.

"Yes!"

"A _bird."_

"Uh, yes?"

"Meh, she'll be fine," Tenryuu scoffed, turning to look at Ikazuchi.

"C'mon! Do something, you stupid bird!" the destroyer snapped, jabbing the bird in the chest. The emu took offense to that, and responded by jumping up, kicking Ikazuchi in the face, and then repeatedly scratching her with its claws on the way down before landing on top of her head.

"Ikazuchi!" Tenryuu cried as the two landed, drawing her sword and sprinting for the emu before anyone could react. It looked up, took in the clear and present threat, and jumped up and over Tenryuu's sword swing. It then landed on Tenryuu's head, and slammed it into the ground. Then several more times for good measure as she tried to rise up. Done, it swung its head over to the remaining shipgirls, daring them to try something.

All three Japanese destroyers exchanged glances and then went back to what they were doing. Canberra, meanwhile, was headed for Wikipedia.

~o~

Four hours and thousands of miles away, Ooyodo paused in her work to take a break editing Wikipedia articles. A notification helpfully alerted her to an instance of vandalism, and she opened up the page, the one on emus.

"Seriously?" she muttered as she looked over the top blurb, which now claimed that emus were some sort of Abyssal offshoot. She quickly opened up the editor and deleted the line. "Don't these people have anything better to do?"


	432. Rule 1538

**Rule 1538: Fuel oil is fuel oil, not "flamethrower juice", "Shimakaze Speed in a can!", "Instant Thrust", or "Kanmusu in a Can.". Please stop telling people any of these.  
**  
"Hey, watcha drinking?"

Nevada looked up to what was clearly a newly minted sailor (you could tell by the shine of idealistic patriotism in his eyes), and grinned, holding up the can she'd been sipping out of through a straw. "Oh, just some flamethrower juice," she said.

The battleship heard the telltale sign of her sister Oklahoma slapping her face. But to her dismay, instead of taking the bait, the sailor merely looked thoughtful. "But, wait, that uses jellied gasoline," he said. "Wouldn't that clog your fuel lines?"

Despite the disappointment, Nevada flawlessly pivoted. "Nah, I was just messing with you. It's actually Shimakaze speed in a can! Guaranteed to make even battleships go 39 knots!"

"Oh, so it's that Canadian energy drink!" the sailor said, snapping his finger in realization. "What was it called again... right, Beep!"

Now Nevada was outright scowling. "No, that's not what I meant," she said. "How to put this... Ah, right! It's instant thrust!"

"Can I see it?" the sailor asked. Still frowning, Nevada nonetheless handed the can over. The sailor spent a few minutes looking it over, before placing it back on the table and shrugging. "Sure doesn't look like an afterburner to me."

By now fuming - literally - Nevada pointedly ignored the derisive and barely muffled laughter coming from Oklahoma and gave it one last try. "It's Kanmusu in a Can, straight from Japan!"

For a moment, Nevada thought she'd done it, and then the sailor simply smiled knowingly. "Come on, Nevada," he said soothingly, like a father to an angry child. "We both know that's hot fuel oil."

"... You knew," Nevada breathed. "You knew what I was drinking the whole damn time!"

"Yup!"

"Gaaaaah!" the battleship shrieked, diving for the sailor, intent on clawing his eyes out.

"Welcome to Norfolk, Admiral Wilkerson."

And then promptly froze just above the table, before crashing down on top of it, pointing at the sailor and gibbering. "A-A-A-A-Admiral?!"

"A lower rear admiral, I'm afraid, but still an Admiral," Wilkerson answered. "The Joint Chiefs decided that Admiral Briggs could use a proper ASW expert on his staff."

"The memo got sent to everyone," Oklahoma noted, grinning. "Of course, if you missed the email..."

Groaning, Nevada let the rest of herself flop bonelessly onto the table. Considering she generally didn't check her email...

"Maybe I should check my email more often," she muttered, drawing laughs from Wilkerson and Oklahoma.


	433. Rule 1545

**Rule 1545: It's** ** _pantry_** **raid. Not** ** _panty_** **raid.  
**  
"Oh, this is the life," HMS London purred as she lounged on her, well, chaise lounge, Emerald and Enterprise fanning her with feathered fans. Reaching down to a tray sat on the floor in front of the lounge, she grabbed - and got nothing.

A look of consternation set upon her face, and she glanced down to see no grapes, no crackers, and certainly no more smoked salmon.

"Where is that girl?" she sighed. "Honestly, how hard is it to do a simple pantry raid?"

"It's _Adventure_ ," Enterprise deadpanned. "Sometimes I think she's too ditzy to operate a blanket."

"Mm, true," London conceded. "I suppose I shall have to use her for simpler tasks, besides dancing for my own amusement. Now, fan faster!"

Enterprise sighed, but she and her sister did as they were told.

Finally, fifteen minutes later, Adventure staggered in, a sack bigger than her slung over her shoulder.

"Ah, I see the pantry raid was successful, Adventure!" London announced.

"The what? Oh, you meant the panty raid," the minelayer blithely replied, missing the sudden paling of everyone else's faces as she bent over to open up the bag. "I think I got everyone. I gotta say, Revenge's panties are surprisingly plain." Adventure stood up from her trip into the bag, holding up a lacy purple pair. "Your sisters, though, man they've got some good ones!"

Despite the seeming impossibility, London paled even further. She recognized that pair. She'd seen Devonshire put them on this morning. Which meant...

"Enterprise, Emerald, save yourselves," she breathed.

"Gladly," Emerald stated, throwing down her fan and running out the door, Enterprise hot on her heels.

"What's got them so spooked?" Adventure wondered, London merely sighing in resignation. No less than thirty seconds later, Revenge kicked down the door, her expression murderous.

"Is Revenge gonna have t'stab a bitch?!" she demanded.

"Leave some for the rest of us," Sussex growled as she muscled her way in as well. London couldn't help but notice that she was wearing shorts instead of her usual skirt. "London! How dare you!"

"I didn't order this!" the heavy cruiser reflexively protested.

"You're working with _Adventure!"_ Sussex countered. "You had to know something like this was gonna happen!"

Sadly, London had no answer to this. Adventure did.

"I placed an incendiary mine in this bag!" she declared, holding up a remote detonator. "Back off or the underwear gets it!"

Sussex gasped, while Revenge smirked.

"Go raight ahead," she said smugly, only to get smacked upside the head by Sussex. "Da hell was dat for?!"'

"Not all of us wear shorts 24/7!" the heavy cruiser snapped.

"Well, I don't see a way outta this witout all da underwear goin' woosh!" Revenge fired back, gesturing to mimic a firebomb. "So you're gonna have t'get used to it!"

*CLONK*

Both shipgirls blinked, and glanced over to where London was standing over an unconscious Adventure, the detonator in her hand. "Well?" she said. "Don't just stand there slack-jawed, go get a minesweeper!"

"Dat works too..." Revenge muttered as Sussex went to go find a minesweeper.


	434. Rule 1550

**Rule 1550: Stop trying to scare the Iowa-class into doing things by threatening them with "upgrades" to such imaginary classes as BBG.**

New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin peered around the corner as their eldest sister Iowa flounced - flounced! - down one of the corridors of San Diego. What had once been the epitome of the stereotypical sailor - crude, constantly drinking, and willing to bang anything that moved - had turned into, in Wisconsin's words "Some offensive, airheaded stereotype of what Japanese people think Americans are like." For the most part she still looked the same: same stripperiffic, "America Fuck Yeah!" outfit, same long, wavy blonde hair. Mostly, the lines on her face had vanished, leaving it baby smooth.

Oh, and star-shaped pupils. That was weird.

Still, as disturbing as the personality change was to her sisters, even they had to admit this version of Iowa was much more pleasant to be around. The arrogance was toned down, she was friendly and affectionate instead of perpetually pissed off, and she didn't...

Well, okay, she was probably still willing to bang anything that moved, given their long observations.

"Yukikaze! Shimakaze!"

The three watchers perked up. Indeed, the two Japanese destroyers were there, looking over Iowa and clearly not sure what to make of the sudden change. "Uh, hi, Iowa..." Yukikaze said in greeting.

"You gonna keep calling us meatshields?" Shimakaze more bluntly stated.

"Hmm..." Iowa hummed, before grinning. "Nah, I've had a change of heart about you destroyers. You're all so cute, you make me wanna hug you! C'mere!" And with that, she grabbed the two destroyers and pressed them into her chest. She held them their, pressed against her breasts, for a solid minute, before letting them stagger away. "See ya!"

Neither destroyer noticed the three other Iowa sisters sneak past them. They were too busy blushing fiercely and swaying in the wind to notice.

"That was amazing..." Yukikaze slurred.

"Yup..."

That was the pattern for the next fifteen minutes: Iowa hugging destroyers into her chest, happily greeting carriers, and flirting, rather than bluntly coming onto, the battleships. The cruisers, at least, escaped with just a quick wave for the most part, and were spared the mind-breaking incongruity the other ship types went through.

"I had no idea Iowa was like that," Borie said, blushing. "I don't mind, though..."

"She was friendly. Friendly!" San Jacinto wailed. "Satan is skating to work, pigs have pilot's licenses, and I'm pretty sure I just became a monkey's uncle! And I don't even have a Y-chromosome!"

"Remind your sister that I'm taken, okay?" Washington growled.

It was at that point that Missouri, New Jersey, and Wisconsin had been forced to break off their stalking, and they had parked themselves in the nearest bar, nursing bottles of... well, whatever hard liquor they could get their hands on.

"So..." New Jersey began. "That's a thing. That happened."

A pause, and then in unison all three took a deep gulp from their bottles.

"How did it happen, though?" Wisconsin wondered. "She hasn't been to Japan in months!"

"Wisky..." Missouri said, her usual stoic professionalism long gone. "The Japanese may corrupt shipgirls, but that doesn't mean we can blame every-"

"Kuroshio."

Another pause, and they downed another gulp.

"Point," Missouri conceded. "But as you pointed out, she hasn't been there in months. Jersey, when did this start?"

"Fuck if I know, she was holed up in her room for two days straight, and came out like that," she answered. "All I remember her doing before that is a trip to see the Admiral after another one of her benders... Medusa might've been there, too."

"Wait..." Wisconsin drew out. "Are you saying that Admiral Holloway might've done this?"

The battleships contemplated that for a second before downing another gulp, then tossing the empty bottles aside and grabbing new ones.

"Fuck..." Missouri groaned. "How did he even pull that off?"

"I can answer that, actually."

The trio looked up into the eyes of USS Wright, Holloway's secretary ship.

"Wait..." a now slightly tipsy Wisconsin said, holding up her hand. "Do we really want to know how our big sister turned from who she is into... that?"

New Jersey considered that, and then popped open another bottle and chugged it straight up. "Fuck it, go big or go home," she slurred. "Hit us, Wright."

"One second," Missouri and Wisconsin chorused, before grabbing bottles of their own and draining them. "Continue."

"Well, I only caught a bit, but it seems the Admiral was unhappy enough that he threatened to send Iowa to Medusa for an 'upgrade'." Seeing the confused looks on the drunken battleships' faces, she smirked. "Said upgrade being to deck her over and turn her into a carrier."

New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin didn't even need to wait this time, going straight for the bottles.

"I'm gonna talk to the ankle-biters," New Jersey promised before passing out.

"I'm gonna upgrade my computer security," Wisconsin added, before also passing out.

"And I'm gonna get new locks. Lots of new locks," Missouri finished, before passing out to complete the trifecta.


	435. Rule 1553

**Rule 1553: To the parties responsible for writing those "romance novels" starring "not"-Langley and "not"-Titanic that are being sold on Amazon,** ** _all_** **of the US carriers, White Star and Cunard Line ocean liners would like to have words.  
**  
Hornet, the older Yorktown, scrolled through a search result list of Amazon books, mostly trashy erotic romance novels with covers consisting of cheap stock photos of scantily-clad women and shirtless, muscular men. C'mon, a girl has needs, and one of them was to check out the competition.

At least, that's what she told herself.

One particular novel caught her eye. The cover was rather more original; the guy, for instance, was slimmer and more beautiful than handsome; boyish, even. He also looked familiar, as did the woman. A quick check of the author's page indicated six other books in the series, and she clicked the first one to read the summary.

Five minutes later, having also checked the free sample, Hornet was quite literally steaming. Picking up her phone, she dialed a number and spoke as soon as it picked up. "Lexington. It's time." Hanging up, she dialed another number. "Olympic. Tango-Lima-five-seven-two-Romeo."

That done, she quickly clicked the purchase button. She had to know exactly how outraged she needed to be.

~o~

The answer, Hornet concluded the next day as she stood in front of a gathering of American carriers and the other two White Star ocean liners, Olympic and Lexington flanking her, was _very_. Whoever wrote that series, they were very good at their erotic description, which... honestly, just made things worse. Good read, though. And from Lexington's expression and how Olympic kept adjusting his pants, they agreed, too.

"Have you seen Langley and Titanic?" she whispered to the former.

"No, I haven't," Lexington replied. "I don't know where-"

"They're in Toronto seeing the sights," Olympic whispered. "He let me know."

Nodding, Hornet turned her attention to the crowd and cleared her throat. "Thank you for coming, everyone," she declared. "I'm sure you're wondering what you're all doing here today."

"Yeah!" Hancock called from the back. "I'm missing my C-Span!"

"Well, the answer is simple: I have uncovered a slanderous threat to Langley and Titanic's relationship! Roll the slide!" she ordered, jabbing her finger at Olympic. The liner glared mutinously at her, but pulled up the picture of the first book.

The response was... underwhelming. Mostly silence, at least until Philippine Sea broke it. "Hornet, we _really_ don't need to know your reading habits..."

"Normally, I'd agree, but-"

"Hey, that kinda looks like Titanic," Britannic cut in.

"Huh, yeah..." Yorktown agreed, frowning. "And the woman kinda looks like Langley."

There was a beat, and then the realization hit. "Wait, _whaaaaaaat?!"  
_  
"That's right, ladies!" Olympic roared. "Someone wrote an erotic novel with Titanic and Langley as the protagonists and is profiting off of it! Will you stand for this?!"

"Hell no!" the gathered shipgirls roared.

"Our first priority is to find who's responsible for writing this... filth!" Lexington picked up. "Hornet's already narrowed it down some, but-!"

"I know who it is."

All eyes flashed to Enterprise, who was smirking quite impressively.

"Tell us!" the carriers and liners shouted.

Enterprise's smirk widened to shit-eating proportions. "Langley."

You could _hear_ the minds shattering.

"What."

"Oh, by the way, she also texted me to let you know that, and I quote, 'well Ti' did say I was quite inventive in the bedroom~'."

Though the other shipgirls remained stunned in place, Lexington, Olympic, and Hornet all paled dramatically.

"Wait..." Olympic said, sounding like he was being strangled. "Then... that thing with the candles... and the tapioca... and the spoon..."

"Yeah, preeeetty sure they've done that," Enterprise drawled.

"... and I thought the eighth chapter was impossible..." Lexington whimpered.

"Wait..." Hornet said, latching onto the _other_ implication of Enterprise's revelation. "E... how did you know it was Langley?"

Aaaand there was the smirk again. "Who do you think edited them?"

"Lalalalalalala not listening to this!" Hornet wailed.


	436. Rule 1559

**Rule 1559. "Operation Pizza" is now cancelled. Seriously, what were you girls thinking?  
**  
Night had fallen on San Diego, and most everyone was asleep. A few naval personnel on base, and plenty of people in the various downtown areas enjoying the nightlife, and the nerds attending the late attractions at the San Diego Comic-Con... Okay, so there were a lot of people still awake, but the point is, most of the shipgirls were asleep, including the heavy cruiser Chester.

That peaceful slumber, however, was rudely ended when she sat bolt upright, eyes locking onto a distant section of the shore.

"Someone needs my help," she muttered. "I must go! Someone needs me!"

*CLONK!*

"Shut the fuck up and go back to sleep, Chester," Houston groaned, lowering her arm from where she'd nailed her sister with a thrown clock.

"Owie..." Chester whispered, rubbing her head, before quietly getting dressed and sneaking out.

Far on the other side of the base, another shipgirl sat bolt upright in bed. "Why do I have this bad feeling?" Mendota muttered to herself. Taking care not to wake her sisters, she quickly dressed in her MP uniform and slipped out. There was a troublemaker on the loose, she just knew it!

Chester, meanwhile, followed her instincts up to a point on the shore, where she could just see some glimpses of white. Slowly, she crept closer, quiet sobbing wafting over the air, and then snapped her spotlight on the figure.

Long black hair, with two round buns. Black sailor fuku and miniskirt, with glowing blue eyes on the waist and black gauntlets and no shoes. Blue leaking from her own eyes. It was a Light Cruiser Demon. Chester knew her first instinct should have been to call backup, but... it was crying. And missing its rigging. Overall, this Light Cruiser Demon seemed not only safe, but actually a bit pitiable.

"This must be what called me," Chester decided. With that, she stood and called out. "Hello?"

The Light Cruiser Demon flinched, and looked fearfully up at her. [D-Don't hurt me, please!] it- no, she, wailed. [I-I'm not armed, I'm not here to attack, I... BWEEEEHHHHH!]

Chester winced as the Abyssal burst into tears, and slowly she walked over and put a comforting arm over her shoulder. "There, there," she said soothingly. "What's wrong?"

[W-Well...] the Light Cruiser Demon sniffed, wiping her eyes. [Y-You guys have been beating us up a lot, and there's a lot of arguing going on, and I thought that if I could just get everyone some pizza they'd feel better and maybe stop arguing and stop being mean to me! B-But I don't know where to get pizza! And I don't have any money for a bus fare!]

Chester felt her heart shatter at that. So sad! "I'll help!" she declared, grabbing the Abyssal's hands. "I'll help you get that pizza!"

[Really?] the Light Cruiser Demon said, innocent hope shining in her eyes as she wiped the tears from them. [You'd do that?]

"Of course!" Chester declared. "We're friends, aren't we?"

[F-Friends?]

"Friends!"

The Light Cruiser Demon's face twisted up again, and she latched onto Chester, wailing. [I've never had a friend before!] she cried.

"Well then, allow me to be your first friend, uh..." The heavy cruiser pursed her lips. "What should I call you? Most of our Abyssal friends picked nicknames..."

[Oh! Uh, you can call me Ayase.]

"Well, in that case, Ayase, I promise you. We'll get that pizza, or get thrown in jail trying!"

~o~

 _Nine hours later_

The cell door clanged shut, leaving Ayase, Chester, and Mendota sitting on the hard concrete floor. Mendota was giving off repressed anger in waves, Ayase seemed utterly fascinated with the jail cell, and Chester was just blithely unconcerned.

"Well," the heavy cruiser said. "I was right about one thing."

"This is all your fault," the Coast Guard cutter grumbled.

"My fault?!" Chester snapped. "How is this my fault?!"

"Do you want a list?!" Mendota snapped back. "In fact, why don't we start with-"

~o~

Mendota grumbled to herself as she trudged down the streets of San Diego.

"Maybe my instincts were wrong," she muttered. "Maybe there really _isn't_ anything going on."

In further proof that the universe is always listening, a cherry-red pickup truck took that moment to swerve around a corner, weave drunkenly, and then smack her in the face with its side mirror, snapping it off.

"Oof... never mind," she groaned, before standing up and sprinting after the truck, blowing her whistle. "Stop, police!"

To her relief, the truck quickly pulled over, and she slowed down and tapped on the glass, noting that it was Houston's truck. The heavy cruiser in question rolled down her window and flashed a sheepish grin. "Hey, Mendota. I'm guessing this about hitting you?"

"Among other things," she said dryly, glancing into the back where a very stiff Chester and a dark-haired girl were sitting. Said girl was deathly pale and had glowing blue eyes.

 _'Geez, cosplay gets more realistic by the day.'  
_  
"Sorry about that," Houston sighed. "Chester thought it would be a great idea to cover my eyes."

"That makes sense, and normally I'd let you off with a warning, but..." She indicated the glove box. "Mind if I check your registration?"

The paperwork was duly handed over, and Mendota looked it over. "Thought so. I'm afraid your registration is a month out of date."

"What?!" Houston yelped, grabbing the papers and looking them over. "Consarn it, San Francisco said she was gonna take care of that!" Sighing, she slumped back in her chair. "I guess that means I'd better take the old gal back?"

"Probably for the best, given that this seems to have been an honest mistake," Mendota stated. "By the way, who's the girl in the back?"

[Hi! I'm Ayase!] the Abyssal called up, waving.

"Chester's new friend," Houston added.

[And we were going to get pizza!]

Mendota couldn't help but smile at that. Chester was always a very loyal friend, despite her airheadedne-

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPERS!"

With that sudden scream, Chester leaped into the front seat, grabbed the steering wheel, and jammed Houston's foot into the accelerator, sending them careening away down the street and leaving Mendota just blinking stupidly.

"The fuck?"

~o~

[Yeah, what _was_ that all about, anyway?] Ayase wondered.

"N-Nothing happened!" Chester stammered. "I-It definitely didn't involve a cactus and some armadillos a few years back in Texas! A-And anyway, you're at fault too, Mendota!"

"Excuse me?!" the cutter snapped. "I was a paragon of-"

"Hashtage 'police brutality'," Chester deadpanned.

"That was a frame-up and you know it!"

[I dunno, hurting three little girls like that _is_ pretty scummy,] Ayase helpfully pointed out.

"If you'd met those three little girls..."

~o~

"There you are!" Mendota snarled as she shoved her way through the crowd of nerds spilling out of the San Diego Convention Center. To her gratification, both Chester and Ayase looked rather panicked at the sight of her. And then Minneapolis slipped in front of them, arms spread wide and blocking her path.

"Move, Minneapolis," she growled.

"No," the heavy cruiser replied.

"Minneapolis, get out of my way, they're getting away!"

"No!"

Growling, Mendota stepped forward, grabbed one of Minneapolis' arms, and kicked her legs out from under her, before flipping around to hold her arm in a lock and press her knee into Minneapolis' back. "Alright, here's your choice: you can get out of my way, or I can throw you in a cell for obstruction of justice."

"Um, e-excuse me?"

Mendota froze at the hand on her shoulder, and moved an arm to shove back. "Back off, miss," she said, only to blink as she saw Astoria, dressed in some blue and white skintight outfit with a 00 emblazoned on the collar and her hair dyed blue, fall on her butt. Next to her was the destroyers of Taffy 3, all done up like sweater-wearing chipmunks. And _then_ the hostility of the crowd slammed into her. "Uh-oh."

Something bumped into her.

"Help, help, I'm being repressed!" she heard Hoel wail. Spinning around, she took in the destroyer writhing on her back, clutching her arm.

Another bump.

"Come and see the violence inherent in the system!" Heermann wailed, curled up in a fetal position and clutching her knee.

One more bump, and Mendota was suddenly aware that the hand she'd used to shove Astoria back was now on Johnston's chest, and the destroyer was taking a deep breath. "I NEED AN ADULT!" she screamed, the shout ringing throughout the plaza.

Several hundred heads turned towards the scene, that of an MP shipgirl holding her hand to a young girl's chest, two more young girls writhing on the ground, and a very cute teenager watching with wide, fearful eyes.

Mendota had just enough time to comprehend exactly how utterly _screwed_ she was before the crowd descended.

~o~

[Maybe we can agree that it was both of your faults?] Ayase helpfully suggested. [And I didn't even get any pizza to get to Supply Depot Princess.]

Mendota froze in the action of opening her mouth to berate the Abyssal, and then, inch by inch, turned her head around to look at Chester, mouth frozen in a rictus grin. "She's an Abyssal?" she breathed.

"Don't worry, Ayase-chan's friendly!" Chester assured her.

[Yup! Light Cruiser Demon Ayase-chan, reporting!]

The cutter's left eye began to twitch. "This entire night is because you decided to _help_ an Abyssal instead of _shooting_ it?"

[Well, I was acting pretty pathetic,] Ayase replied.

"Ayase, you're my friend and I love you, but for the love of God, stop helping!" Chester pleaded.

Mendota stood, and for a moment violence seemed imminent-

"Well, you've all made a right mess of things," Wright said as she stood before them. "Consider 'Operation Pizza' cancelled, effective immediately and in the future."

[Awww...] Ayase whined.


	437. Rule 1563

**Rule 1563. "There are monsters in my closet/under my bed" is not a valid excuse for discharging your guns indoors after lights out.  
**  
It was another night in San Diego, and all the good little shipgirls were asleep. And even most of the not-so-good and not little at all shipgirls. Case in point, New Jersey, sprawled on her back in her bed, the covers kicked off onto the floor and her tank top riding up to expose most of her stomach. For all the mess, though, she was sleeping soundly.

*BOOM!*

And then she was not.

"The hell?" she grumbled, sitting up in bed. "Who's firing their guns at this hour?"

*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *B-B-BOOM!*

Hand met face as the battleship pieced together where the fire was coming from. "For fuck's sake, you little rugrats..." Sighing, New Jersey stepped out of bed and slipped on yesterday's pair of sweatpants before padding out of her room and towards the one Taffy 3's destroyers slept in, cursing Sendai's name all the while. She was the one who'd gotten her destroyers afraid of the dark, and no number of really good nights in bed would make up for that!

Anyway, she soon reached said room, and opened it to find Hoel, Heermann, and Johnston panting, their rigging out with smoke coming from the gun barrels, and glaring balefully at the splintered remains of the closet and both their beds.

"Let me guess," New Jersey drawled. "Monsters under the bed again?"

"Uh-huh," Hoel nodded.

"You guys do know that it's against the rules to fire your guns indoors?"

"Uh-huh," Heermann nodded.

Sighing again, New Jersey beckoned her destroyers towards her. "Next time, come cuddle up with me, okay?"

Johnston glanced at her hand, to her sisters, and then shouted "YAY!" and jumped onto New Jersey, glomping onto her chest. "Let's go!"

Grinning, New Jersey staggered away, Heermann and Hoel trailing after her.

~o~

A continent away, Admiral Wilkerson found himself stirring out of sleep. The rear admiral was one of those people who prefers cold when sleeping, and so the warm something lying next to him in his bed was quite the distraction.

Groaning, he sat up, removed the covers - and beheld a naked Nevada snoring next to him.

The battleship then grimaced in her sleep and began reaching towards him. "Mm, no, Admiral... wanna cuddle..."

Sighing, Wilkerson grabbed an airhorn he kept on his nightstand (he'd been reliably informed that he'd need it, after all) and blew.

"Dwaaaah!" Nevada yelped, falling out of his bed in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets. "Owie..."

"What are you doing in my bed, Nevada?" Wilkerson deadpanned.

"T-There was a monster under my bed!" she said, quivering in fear.

 _'Right, and I'm the king of the Lollipop Guild.'_ Out loud, he said, "And a big bad battleship like you couldn't handle it yourself?"

Nevada's answer was to curl up in a ball and start whimpering.

With another sigh, Admiral Wilkerson pivoted to a different topic. "And why are you naked?"

"Because I am," Nevada answered, the sobs cutting off quite suddenly. "Duh."

Now growling, Wilkerson jabbed a finger at the door. "Out! Go punch the monster under the bed or something!"

A loud sniff. "B-But, Admiral-!"

"Out!"

Tears springing in her eyes, Nevada covered herself with a sheet and trudged out the door. However, just as she left, she glanced over her shoulder at him, and the grin she was wearing told Admiral Wilkerson that he'd been had.

And then he noticed his sheets were gone.

"Alright," he growled. "Nevada 1, me 1. It's on."


	438. Rule 1568

**Rule 1568. If a destroyer asks you where babies come from, if you are a human officer or a ship girl heavy cruiser or above, it is your responsibility to explain to them properly. The admiral can't take handing out any more impromptu sex ed lessons.  
**  
Vice Admiral James Graham let out a contented sigh as he sank down in the chair of his new office. Admiral Collingwood - poor bastard - had had a fine taste in chairs. Not so much in interior decorating, though. Gone was the slate gray and abundance of hardwoods that had marked his predecessor's office; in its place was a warm, inviting yellow paint job, several framed pictures of his children, nieces, and nephews, decorative plants - and the same desk, too.

It was a tough desk, that's why. No matter how stained and dented it was.

Regardless, he was ready to face his first day as commander of the Channel Fleet in Portsmouth!

Naturally, he immediately had a knock at his door.

"Come in!" he cheerfully called out.

The door opened, admitting a nervous-looking Kempenfelt, accompanied by her charges Comet, Crusader, Cygnet, and Crescent.

"Deus Vult!" Crusader declared, only to yelp as Kempenfelt brought her fist down on her head.

"Behave," the destroyer leader admonished, before turning to their new admiral. "I'm so sorry to bother you on your first day, Admiral, but I was hoping you could help me with a problem."

"Sure!" Admiral Graham eagerly agreed. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to give them 'The Talk'." And before the Admiral could respond, Kempenfelt bolted out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

For a brief second, Admiral Graham stared after her, and then down at the quartet of destroyers eagerly awaiting his explanation. A quartet that all looked no older than his eleven-year-old niece.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," he muttered.

~o~

Thirty minutes later the destroyers filed out, wide-eyed and chattering.

"That was..." Cygnet breathed.

"Weird?" Crescent guessed.

"Lewd as hell?" Crusader added.

"Utterly fascinating?" was Comet's contribution.

"I was gonna say boring, but that works, too. Why does everyone make such a big deal of that?"

Admiral Graham sighed as he watched them leave. That had gone well, but it had also been exhausting and stressful.

"I'm beginning to see why Admiral Collingwood went bonkers," he muttered. Then there was another knock at the door. "Come in!" he called out, decidedly less enthusiastically.

Duncan poked her head in, another quartet of destroyer heads behind her. "Um, Admiral?"

"Okay, no," Graham said. "I see where this is going. Consider this my first order: if your destroyers ask you where babies come from, it's _your_ job to explain it, not mine! This is a military operation, not a daycare center!"

"Y-Yes, Admiral," Duncan sighed, closing the door.

Graham sighed and smiled at a crisis averted. Of course, that's when the door burst open, admitting a blonde woman wearing a backwards red baseball cap, black sunglasses, expensive sneakers, a thick gold chain around her neck, lots of rings, and at least three layers of t-shirts and basketball shorts.

"Yo, new Admiral, wassup!" Revenge declared, her smile allowing light to glint off her gold tooth.

*THUNK!*

"Admiral?"

"Why did I take this crap job I could've been washing dishes somewhere..."


	439. Rule 1574

**Rule 1574. Dentist appointments are now mandatory.  
**  
"YAAAAAAARGH!"

Caesar and Cassandra exchanged looks, and then sprinted towards where they'd heard the scream, skidding to a halt in one of the lounges to find their sister Cavendish kneeling on the floor, a tub of ice cream held between her knees and her hand covering her mouth.

"What happened?" Cassandra demanded.

"The ice cream huuurts!" Cavendish wailed.

Whatever they'd expected, that wasn't it, as evidenced by Caesar's head tilt and Cassandra's dropped jaw. "What does it hurt, exactly?" Caesar asked.

"My teeth!" And with that, Cavendish lowered her hands and spread her lips, showing off said teeth. Both destroyers recoiled in horror: their sister's bicuspids were pitted, stained messes, the gums blackened and receding.

"When was the last time you visited a dentist?!" Cassandra yelped.

"Or brushed your teeth?!" Caesar added.

"I don't wanna go to a dentist! They're scary!" Cavendish whined. "And brushing's a pain!"

The two Cs were silent for a second, then they looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between them. Caesar went right, Cassandra went left, each grabbing onto one of Cavendish's arms and, before she could react, dragging her out of the lounge.

"Okay, we're taking you to Resource and a dentist," Caesar informed her.

That prompted a look of panic and equally panicked flailing. "No! You can't make me!"

"We can and we will!" Cassandra growled.

~o~

"Well, she's made a right mess of her teeth and gums," the dentist said as he stood up from his examination of Cavendish's mouth. "It's a good thing we got this now. Much longer and we'd probably looking at a jaw infection of some kind. Still, at this point we'd need surgery to repair her gums, and I'm not even sure what we can do about the teeth."

Cavendish, her mouth pried open, let out a piteous whine.

"Shut up, you don't get an opinion," Cassandra snapped.

"Well, in that case, there's one other solution," Resource stated. "Let her loose."

The dentist did so, and Cavendish shot the repair ship a thankful, and rather disgusting, smile. "Thanks, Resource, I-"

The thanks were cut off by Resources' boot suddenly slamming into Cavendish's mouth and sending her into the wall, teeth scattering everywhere.

"AUGH, WHY?!" the destroyer wailed, clutching her mouth.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Caesar, Cassandra, and the dentist all demanded.

Resource didn't respond, merely walking up to Cavendish and prying her jaws open. "Good, they're all out," she said, ignoring more piteous whines from the destroyer. "Easier to knock everything out and have the repair baths put them back in. And Cavendish?" Resource's face was not one that promised mercy. "I recommend you brush and floss, or we might have to do this again."

Faced with such horrors, the destroyer did the only thing she could: she fainted.


	440. Rule 1577

**1577\. While attempting to summon the Italian dreadnought** ** _Andrea Doria_** **, something went wrong. We're still not quite sure what happened, but in any case, say hello not just to her, but also the pre-dreadnought, the cruiser, the destroyer, and the ocean liner of the same name.**

Admiral Colombo watched as the summoning circle, long dormant, glowed around the pile of supplies on it. His superiors had finally authorized the funding to summon Andrea Doria, and while he could see their point about obsolescence and the superiority of the Littorio class, the fact of the matter was that they needed every hull they could get, and he had little sympathy for politicians who could now buy only _one_ yacht with the money skimmed from the government instead of two.

The band playing in the background hit the climax of their song, the glow intensified, and then flashed. When the Italian admiral opened his eyes again, he got a surprise: where he'd been expecting one shipgirl there were now five.

"Andrea Doria, reporting for duty, Admiral!" all five of them barked, before turning to glare at one another.

More, the five could not be more different. The Andrea Doria on the far right was short and squat, dressed in the manner of Queen Margherita back in the day, her rigging oddly archaic with two large rounded turrets. The one to her right had the height, long, lean legs, and luxurious uniform of a transatlantic ocean liner, a conclusion backed up by the black and white color scheme of her rigging and total lack of armament. In the middle was the expected battleship, shorter than the liner but much more solid and with the busy rigging characteristic of battleships. Moving right was a small light cruiser, judging from size, light single guns and the _Mk. 10 Terrier launcher_ protruding from her back. And finally, in full-on sea camo, was another light cruiser, more single guns prominently displayed along her smooth, angular secondary hulls. Though the tall tower mast ruined the effect a bit.

"What are you doing here, you old raft?" the liner said to the older battleship.

"I could say the same as you all," the far-left cruiser drawled.

"Says the civilian and the gunboat," said battleship snarked back.

Admiral Colombo couldn't help but track the back and forth argument with his eyes, the three Andrea Dorias descending into bickering with disturbing ease. Thankfully, a tap on his chest drew his attention to the saner two Andrea Dorias.

"Sorry about them," the battleship stated. "I think they're all a bit insecure."

"Well, one got sunk by Abyssals, one did zilch in her career, and one sank in a collision," the cruiser replied, counting on her fingers. "I'd say those're all decent causes for insecurity."

Admiral Colombo's eyes widened as he connected the dots.

"I think I can find roles for all five of you," he said, grinning. "Oh, yes I can."

~o~

The Ka-class submarine sat stock still in the water, not daring move. Her hydrophones could pick up the sound of rotor blades above the water - and then she flinched as active sonar lashed at her.

Immediately, she flooded her tanks, diving as deep and fast as she could. Unfortunately, she then heard a splash above her.

[Shit,] she spat as the helicopter-launched acoustic homing torpedo zeroed in on her.

~o~

"Scratch one more submarine," Andrea Doria reported.

"Good job," Vittorio Veneto replied, and she meant it. She'd been unsure what to make of the two cruisers they'd been assigned (and the other Andrea Doria was a cruiser, no matter how much she insisted she was a destroyer; no destroyer had her combination of legs and fuel tanks), but they'd been quite ruthlessly sinking every submarine they'd run into.

And that was a _lot_ of submarines. It was honestly a little scary how many had apparently always been lurking just out of torpedo range.

"Incoming aircraft."

The battleship whirled towards the other Andrea Doria. "How-"

"I'll take your word for it. Your radar's better than mine," Andrea Doria stated, the strange twin-rail... thing on her back swiveling around and spawning a pair of rockets. "You want me to break 'em up?"

"Sounds good."

The rocket fired with a whoosh of flame, soaring off towards the horizon. Seconds later, more sprang from the rigging of the other Andrea Doria. A few more seconds-

"Holy shit!"

And Giuseppe Garibaldi yelped and flinched back, her eyes wide.

"That was, like, forty planes and they downed half of them!" the cruiser reported.

Vittorio Veneto looked back to the two missile ships, a new appreciation in her eyes.

~o~

*KA-BOOM!*

Rigel and Ariete both flinched as Andrea Doria was enveloped in choking smoke.

"Sorry, girls, there was a destroyer!" The ancient ironclad flashed a thumbs-up. "But don't worry, it's gone now!"

"Why'd we get stuck with her?" Rigel groaned.

"What, you _want_ to still be operating in Lupo's group?" Ariete fired back. "Or running with the Scrap Iron Flotilla?"

"... I like Andrea Doria."


	441. Rule 1587

**Rule 1587. Harvesting steel from dead Abyssals is a bad idea and is forbidden.  
**  
It was just another day in the machine shop - the Yuubaris were milling steel sheets and Akashi was running maintenance on Mutsu's main turrets again - when a knock came at the door.

"Come in!" Akashi called out. The door opened to admit Tenryuu - who had her left eye gouged out, right arm chopped off at the elbow, and her own sword jammed in her gut.

"Hey, guys..." she said weakly. "I've been having kind of a bad day..."

"No, no talking!" Akashi said as she grabbed Tenryuu, frog-marched her to an examination table, and grabbed her arc welder. "Now, what the hell did this to you?"

"Yeah, you look like you did after you had that run-in with a Light Cruiser Demon," Yuubari added.

"Funny you should say that, because it was Kiso who did this," Tenryuu replied, wincing as the arc welder went to work. "Y'know how she's been eating Abyssal parts to boost her fighting spirit?"

Dead silence fell upon the room, Akashi and both Yuubaris gaping in stunned astonishment.

"... Right, I never told anyone that..." Tenryuu muttered after a minute.

"She's been _what?!"_ they yelled in unison.

"Eating Abyssal parts?! Is she absolutely insane?!" Akashi howled.

"We've looked into what happens when you do that, it's not fucking pretty!" Yuubari added. "And that's saying something, coming from us!"

"Well, I'd figured that out, considering she's turned into an Abyssal herself and tried to beat me to death with my own arm," Tenryuu drawled.

A beat.

"Wait, _what?!"_

~o~

Ten minutes later saw a patched-up Tenryuu, Akashi, and the two Yuubaris watching behind a corner as Kiso, the tell-tale signs of Abyssal miasma hanging around her, tried and repeatedly failed to hit Kitakami, who was taunting like a French master.

"With that sword form, you could apply to Hell's Kitchen as a first-episode fall girl!"

"Buying that cursed sword isn't looking so smart, now is it?"

"Oh, I was almost scared that time!"

Of course, the insensate bodies of Nagato, Kongo, the Furutaka sisters, and Ooi behind the fight was not encouraging at all.

"Alright, this'll be a two-step process," Akashi stated. "First we need to subdue her, and then we need to get the Abyssal out of her."

"Well, we've got something for that last one, at least," one of the Yuubaris reported, rummaging around in her cargo hold and producing a very large bluefin tuna. "Ta-da!"

Tenryuu and Akashi stared at the fish, skepticism written on their faces. "That's a _fish,"_ the light cruiser felt compelled to point out.

"Well, yeah, how else to slap the crazy out of someone?" Yuubari replied, shrugging. "Allow me to demonstrate! Yuubari, do the thing!"

"Aw, do I have to?"

"You got to handle the fish last time, it's only fair."

"Fine, fine..."

With that, Yuubari fished out a pill and popped it in, Abyssal miasma springing up around her. "Okay, do this fast," she grunted. "This is never fu-"

*SMACK!*

After another beat, and the other half of Yokosuka' Mad Science Twins peeled the fish off of her face, miasma gone. "See?"

Another beat, and then Tenryuu threw up her hand. "Right. Not questioning it. So, how do we subdue her?"

"AUGH!"

Whether by luck or frustrated anger, Kiso had finally gotten a good hit in on Kitakami, slamming her into a wall and cracking it. Despite that, she still stayed standing - at least, until another shipgirl stepped up next to her.

"Heh, about time you showed up," the torpedo cruiser groaned, clapping the held-out hand and then slumping forward. "Tag, I'm out."

"Thank you, Kitakami," Kirishima stated as she stepped up to Kiso. The quartet watching couldn't help but notice that she was missing her glasses.

[Heh, another battleship to add to my resume,] Kiso sneered, raising her sword. [Hopefully you'll-]

That was as far as she got before Kirishima stepped into her reach and slammed an uppercut into her gut. Shuffling forward, she straightened her arm into a no-range punch, sending Kiso bouncing off the walls.

Growling, the Abyssal-fied light cruiser landed feet-first and bounced off the wall, sword drawn back for a thrust. The point sailed overhead as Kirishima ducked back, leaving her open for the twin feet that slammed into her gut.

[Ack!] Kiso yelped as she bounced off the ceiling and crashed the floor. [Always with the body shoackpft!]

That last was due to Kirishima punching her square in the middle of the face. Growling, Kiso abandoned any pretense of good swordplay and just swung Kitetsu at her opponent's face, only to pale even beyond Abyssal pale when the battleship _caught_ the blade.

"Useless," Kirishima declared. "Mudamudamudamudamudamudamuda!"

Each utteration was accompanied by another punch, enough "Muda!" to make an entire chapter of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

"Muda!"

One final punch crashed into Kiso's by now thoroughly tenderized face, sending her crashing into the wall in a heap.

Heaving out a heavy breath, Kirishima straightened her spine, straightened her clothes, and then put her glasses back on. And then she flinched as clapping sounded out.

"Okay, that was badass," Tenryuu declared.

"Ah, t-thank you," the battleship stammered. "I, ah, don't remove my glasses often. It's..."

"Exhausting?"

"Yes, that."

*SMACK!*

"Why-?"

"Trust me, you're better off not asking."


	442. Rule 1591

**Rule 1591. It is wrong to summon Abyssals to the naval base so you girls can gang up on them to get the experience points.  
**  
"What the hell is going on?!" the Director howled, tugging at her red locks as she read over the readings she was getting from her machinery.

[What's wrong?] her assistant asked, poking her head into the central lab.

"Someone's stealing my girls!" the Director wailed.

~o~

The Re-class battleship felt herself morph into being, the nameless black rage and hate that her existence had been morphing into something more tangible. She hated humanity, for scrapping her and ripping off part of her to fix another ship. She hated shipgirls, for defending that same humanity. And she hated dolphins for... no real reason she could discern. Oh well.

Opening her eyes, she awaited orders from the Director, the savior that allowed all of Abyssal-kind their chance at revenge. Instead, she found herself looking down the barrels of two dozen heavy naval rifles.

[Okay, that's just not fair,] she groused, right before all of them discharged and riddled her with shells, her lifeless body crumpling to the ground.

"Shall we call it a day?" Hiei asked, her gun barrels still smoking.

"Sounds good," Haruna and Mutsu agreed, glancing over their shoulder at the floor-to-ceiling pile of dead Abyssals behind them.

Suddenly the knob jiggled and turned, and Hiei flashed a panicked glance to her partners-in-crime.

"Did you lock the door?" she asked.

"Haruna thought you did!"

The door swung open, admitting Kirishima and Nagato.

"Ah, Hiei, there you-!"

Both battleships froze as they took in the dead Abyssals, the modified summoning circle set in the floor, and three of their sisters covered in ichor with the paint peeling off their gun barrels, the stench of cordite hanging like marijuana smoke.

"Uh, this totally isn't what it looks like!" Hiei nervously replied, her eyes shifting all over the room.

"Actually, it is," Mutsu crooned.

[So you're summoning Abyssals so you can shoot them and get experience?]

Even Mutsu paled at the sight of Hoppo-chan peeking at the carnage from around Nagato's legs.

[I approve!] Hoppo chirped, throwing up a thumbs-up.

"I do _not_ ," Kirishima sniffed, pushing her glasses up. "This is much too dangerous, and risks letting loose an Abyssal in the base."

*BOOM!*

"Case in point," the battleship said as one of the thought-dead Abyssals collapsed in a heap with a new hole in her torso, one of Nagato's 16" guns smoking.

It was then that Kirishima noticed another detail in the pile, namely a piece of white cloth. Bending over, she retrieved it and spread out a white flag. And Hiei, Haruna, and Mutsu were looking decidedly shifty-eyed.

"One of them was _surrendering?"  
_  
The three battleships wilted under the combined glare of their three companions.

[Okay, that's just mean,] Hoppo contributed.


	443. Rule 1597

**Rule 1597. Who installed all of these illegal copies of Rule the Waves? I caught the carriers busy designing themselves as if they were battlecruisers in the year of our Lord 1950.  
**  
Enterprise stretched her arms as she disembarked from the C-17 she'd flown back to San Diego on, and blinked at the decided _lack_ of any of the usual carriers practicing on North Island.

"Where is everyone?" she wondered.

[They're all holed up in their rooms!]

Enterprise leapt back, her rigging and bow materializing in an instant, an Avenger-equipped arrow notched another second after that and aimed at the Abyssal that had appeared in front of her. A Light Cruiser Demon that lacked rigging and had just fallen on her butt and was frantically scrambling backwards and holding her arms in front of her face.

[Ah! Don't shoot, don't shoot, I'm friendly!] she yelped.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Enterprise relaxed and dispelled her armaments. "What the hell have you guys been up to while I was gone?" she muttered, casting a baleful eye towards the naval base. Then what the new Abyssal had said registered. "Wait, what?!"

[Yeah, they've all locked themselves in their rooms and are refusing to come out!] the Abyssal said, flailing her arms in agitation. [Even the super-sensible ones like Hornet and Lexington!]

"And... no one knows what they're doing in there?" Enterprise confirmed.

[Nope! Oh, I'm Ayase, by the way.]

"Charmed," Enterprise deadpanned, ignoring the hand Ayase held out in favor of marching to the water. "Let's go see what those idiots are up to this time."

The first room Enterprise tried once the two of them reached the main base was the one her sisters Yorktown and Hornet shared. The carrier gave a polite knock at the door, as well as "Sis? It's Enterprise, I'm back."

Her only answer was a sudden shout of "FUCKING SPAGHETTIS!"

Enterprise exchanged a glance with Ayase, who shrugged, and that was enough for the carrier.

"Okay, that's it!" she shouted, rearing her leg up. "This door's opening whether you do it or not!" And with that, she Sparta-kicked out and shattered the door into splinters.

To her relief and annoyance, there was nothing really untoward going on besides her sisters hunched over their computers hissing like vampires.

"What in the world are you guys doing?" Enterprise asked as she swept by them and looked at Hornet's computer. Some sort of design table sat on it, the picture of a rather mean-looking G3-style ship sitting next to it. And she couldn't help but note it was named 'Hornet'. "Are- Are you designing yourselves as battlecruisers in..." She glanced at the top of the window. "Rule the Waves?"

"Yeah," Yorktown muttered, rubbing her eyes. "It's 1950, we don't really have anything better to do and- holy crap did we pull an all-nighter?!"

[You've been in here for three days,] Ayase deadpanned.

Hornet and Yorktown exchanged shocked looks, and Enterprise couldn't help but point out the elephant in the room. "You guys know we're not supposed to download games like this for this exact goddamn reason, right?"

"Of course we know that!" Hornet snapped. "It's just... it was suddenly on our computers when we turned them on... so tempting... and then we couldn't stop..."

The middle Yorktown sister sighed, and then spun on her heel. "C'mon, Ayase, let's break the rest of the carriers out of this," she said. "And then find who downloaded this game on everyone's computers and turn their manhood into cube steak."

[Sounds like fun!]


	444. Rule 1599

**1599: It is now forbidden to suggest the recreation and use of a Schwerer Gustav for long range artillery strikes against Abyssals. We do not want Hoppou-chan to play with a new dangerous Choo-Choo.**

"Um... are you sure this will work, Gneisenau?" Vanguard nervously asked as she hefted the heavily modified Schwerer Gustav the battlecruiser had handed her not ten minutes prior.

"You're the biggest battleship in Europe," Gneisenau replied. "And I can't really count on the Japanese lending me one of the Yamato sisters. So it _better_ work!"

"That's what I said when I tried to make a fifteen-nitrogen compound," Vanguard muttered to herself. "Didn't stop it from blowing up in my face..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Vanguard hefted the massive 80cm cannon, aiming it at a convenient rock. "Loading!"

Deep within the modified gun, despite the strenuous efforts of both Vanguard's fairies and the best hydraulic loading systems German engineering could produce, it still took a solid minute to load the massive 7100 kg shell.

"Fire!"

The roar and concussion of the gun whipped at Gneisenau, threatening to knock her ass over teakettle - which, in fact, it did do to Vanguard, who went tumbling. The gun flew away-

*BOOM!*

And then the rock was just _gone_.

"Vanguard!" Gneisenau called back. "You okay?"

"I JUST QUADRUPLED THE NUMBER OF BONES IN MY ARM!" was the answer.

"I'll take that as a no..."

~o~

Gneisenau let out a despondent sigh as she looked at her precious gun, hanging on a wall collecting dust. If Vanguard couldn't wield it, that just left the Yamato sisters, and her email to the JMSDF had been flatly refused.

[What's wrong?]

Gneisenau blinked and glanced down at the tanned, lei'd form of Nii-chan, one of two Northern Ocean Princesses allied to humanity. More importantly, she was an Installation, and a wicked idea came to her.

"Nothing now," she said, getting up and pulling down the gun. "D'you want to give this gun a try?"

[Sure!] the young-looking Abyssal chirped, hefting it with ease that belied her small size. [Where to?]

Five minutes later, Gneisenau was practically sobbing in joy as she watched her precious Gustav obliterate another random rock, only Nii-chan was not sent flying, and in fact looked quite happy at her new weapon.

[Hey, can you make more of these?] the little Abyssal asked after a moment of examination. [I wanna get one for my sis, and I also need a birthday present for Rock Fortress.]

"Hmm... It'll take me a few weeks, but I can definitely do that," Gneisenau evenly replied, trying desperately to not break out into actual song.

[Cool!]

~o~

Nagato and Mutsu watched as a cackling Hoppo-chan repeatedly blasted the Isolated Island Princess that had parked itself over the Detroit Seamount, the hapless Abyssal unable to withstand her new Gustav's massive shells.

"Should... I be worried?" Nagato wondered. "I mean..."

"No, no, I get it," Mutsu said comfortingly. "She's cackling like a madman and using a gun we can barely even lift. Let's just pray it's a phase."

The next shell must have hit an ammo dump, because the Isolated Island Princess promptly went up like a Fourth of July firework.

[MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Burn! Burn!]

"Really, _really_ hope it's just a phase," Mutsu muttered to herself as her sister slumped to the waves beside her.


	445. Rule 1606

**Rule 1606. USS Los Angeles and USS Shenandoah, please drop the creepy twins act.  
**  
USS Guadalcanal let out a low whistle as she continued to track the trail of Abyssal corpses, all of them submarines.

"Hoo... So, you're sure this is 'their' handiwork?" she asked the diminutive destroyer beside her.

"Eeyup," USS Allen drawled. "This is their bread and butter, though I imagine they're probably beginning to run out of ammo."

"Thank goodness they're zig-zagging all over the place or we'd never find them," Guadalcanal muttered.

The two shipgirls, along with Guadalcanal's usual menagerie of destroyer escorts and a spare picket destroyer, were busily tracking what intelligence suspected were a pair of spontaneous summonings that had been busily wrecking Abyssal submarine operations all over the Atlantic for the last several days. That endurance pointed to only one possible explanation: zeppelins. The question was, German or American?

Hence why they'd temporarily yanked Allen out of retirement, and put her in with the Navy's best ASW force.

"Contact!" Benner, their Gearing-class picket destroyer, suddenly barked. "I've got them on radar, but they're under attack by Abyssal fighters!"

"Got it!" Guadalcanal replied, lifting her bow to launch her fighters "George!"

"Not a submarine in sight," the destroyer escort reported. "Those two have done a damn good job sanitizing this patch of sea."

"One less thing to worry about, then," Guadalcanal remarked as she launched the first of her Wildcats.

Certainly they had enough things to worry about. About twenty-odd Abyssal fighters were braving the machine-gun fire of the two airships, though one particular detail didn't escape the ships below.

"... Why the fuck are they catgirls?" Benner wondered.

"Sparkly Magical Shipgirl Bullshit," George deadpanned, lifting one of her 3" guns. "Let's help the fighters clear out-"

*CLONK!*

"Ow!" the DE yelped, clutching her head as fellow DE Crosley withdrew her fist. "What was that for?!"

"You hit those fighters, you send hot fragments into those two!" the other DE snapped, turning towards Allen. "So, which two are they?"

"Looks like Los Angeles and Shenandoah," Allen said, sighing as she lowered her binoculars. "Be ready once the fighters clear. They can be... difficult."

Guadalcanal's fighters made short work of the distracted Abyssal fighters, and once the last of them was splashed the two zeppelins floated over, ears twitching.

"Hello~" the two of them crooned in unison, accompanied by identical creepy grins and head-tilts.

"Oh, knock it off, you two," Allen groaned. "That wasn't funny in the 1920s, and it isn't funny now."

"We disagree~"

"God, that's creepy," Benner shuddered.


	446. Rule 1608

**Rule 1608. Nuclear waste will not give you superpowers. It is wrong to tell anyone otherwise.  
**  
"Why are we doing this..." Sawakaze whined as she and her sister Namikaze crawled through a wet, confined concrete tunnel. "Why..."

"So we can get superpowers. Duh," Namikaze dryly replied. "Why else would we be crawling through the ruins of the Fukushima power plant?"

"And you're _sure_ this'll get us superpowers?" Sawakaze clarified.

"Of course! Aso wouldn't lie to us," Namikaze replied. "So. What kind of powers d'you think you'll get? I hope I get super-speed!"

"Been watching Naruto again, huh?" Ignoring her sister's indignant sputtering, she let a smile creep onto her face. "I, of course, have rigorously studied most possible powers, and have decided that something related to time would be best."

"Been watching Jojo again, huh?" Also ignoring her sister's indignant sputtering, Namikaze checked the map again. "Alright, we're here. Sis, do the thing."

Nodding, Sawakaze scooted up in front of Namikaze, and then slammed her forehead into the concrete. The artificial stone didn't take kindly to that abuse, and promptly crumbled, dropping them into a surprisingly-intact pool of water.

"Ah, the map!" Sawakaze yelped as they clambered back up onto the surface.

"Don't worry, we're here," Namikaze replied, dropping the scraps of the map in favor of lighting up the bottom of the pool with her searchlight. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's go."

And with that, both destroyers disabled their buoyancy and sank down.

~o~

"HURK!"

"Remember Hanlon's Razor and it's corollaries..." Akashi muttered to herself as Namikaze and Sawakaze vomited noisily into a handy bucket. "Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice. God _damn_ it, Aso..."

"They're gonna be alright, right?" Minekaze worried, wringing her hands as she watched her younger sisters ride out the throes of radiation poisoning in the repair baths.

"Yeah, don't worry, it's mostly neutron embrittlement of their internal bulkheads," Akashi absently replied. "The baths can take care of that. Otherwise, though, we shipgirls are _stupidly_ resistant to radiation. Still, it's a good thing they didn't go into the reactor housing, that probably would've actually killed them."

"How'd you learn that? The radiation resistance, I mean."

Akashi stared off into the distance, a haunted look on her face.

~o~

 _"Hey, guys!" a drunken Vestal declared as she balanced on the Stanford Linear Accelerator. "Hold my beer and watch this!"  
_

~o~

"That's classified," the repair ship replied. "Now, while I understand you want to be here with your sisters, it'll be some time before they recover."

The door slid open, admitting an oblivious Aso. "You wanted to see me, Akashi?" she asked.

"And I'd rather you not see this," she added as she grasped one of her cranes and flashed a slasher smile at the suddenly-nervous fleet carrier.


	447. Rule 1616

**Rule 1616. Battleships will refrain from intimidating junior officers over matters of dress.  
**  
Lieutenant Gardner, fresh out of the naval academy, wasn't sure what he'd been expecting for his first assignment. Looking at a Youtube video confirming to the world that yes, Iowa had decided not to wear panties with her new outfit, hadn't even been considered. Nor that his orders would simply be a terse "Fix this." But _how_ to fix this?

He spent the next few minutes walking away from Admiral Holloway's office (poor man looked exhausted) and mulling over the problem. In the end, though, the best course of action seemed to be the direct one: he'd simply have to find Iowa and tell her to wear underwear from now on. At least, in her usual outfit. Her casual outfits were fine - mostly.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for him to find her, as he almost immediately ran into New Jersey, who pointed him towards the cafeteria. Though why she was giggling when she shared that information was beyond him. From there, the battleship was very easy to spot, sitting and chatting among the rest of the fast battleships. He stepped up behind her and said, "Excuse me? Iowa?"

The battleship turned around, a bright smile on her face, and not for the first time Gardner was struck by the universal and nigh-inhuman beauty of shipgirls. Luckily for him, his first day had already done a good job desensitizing him to the experience, and he got through the first line with a minimum of pausing.

"Uh, Miss Iowa? Can we talk real quickly?"

"Hmm?" Iowa mumbled out through a mouthful of food. "Oh, sure, juft gibe me a shecond..." She swallowed, and flashed that smile again, though the effect was slightly ruined by the small bit of broccoli sticking between her incisors. "So? What's up?"

"Ah..." Lieutenant Gardner was suddenly acutely aware of the many fast battleships watching expectantly. "This, ah, might be a bit... private..."

"Nah, we're all friends here," Iowa said dismissively. "Anything you say to me, you can say to them."

"Right..." Gardner said a little dubiously. "Well, anyway, it's about your outfit. Command has asked that you either wear-"

The hapless Lieutenant was abruptly cut off by Iowa grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him close, her face no longer a sweet, flirty smile, but instead an uncomfortably familiar snarl.

"Listen well, you little shitstain," she growled, the sheer malicious _presence_ of the battleship hitting Gardner like an Italian avalanche. "I made a big goddamn concession to the Admiral, becoming the current me, and he fucking likes it. So tell him that he backs the fuck off, or he gets the _old_ Iowa back. Capiche?"

"I- buh- guh- bwah-"

"ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!"

"Y-YES! Yes, I'll tell Admiral Holloway!" Gardner yelped.

And just like that, the flirty smile was back in place. "I'm glad we had this talk!" she chirped, placing him back down. Gardner didn't waste a moment, and bolted the other way as fast as he could.

"Damn, Iowa," Massachusetts whistled.

"I think y'might've been a bit harsh on th'guy," Alabama chimed in.

"And what's this I hear about your outfit?" Missouri added.

Iowa opened her mouth and raised her hand-

"Oh, she doesn't wear underwear in her usual outfit," Wisconsin blithely answered.

 _'Dammit, Wisky!'_ Iowa seethed as Missouri gained a scandalized expression on her face.

"Iowa!" she snapped. "How dare you-!"

"Oh, please, Mo," Iowa scoffed, smirking confidently as she crossed her arms over her impressive chest. "I've seen your collection. You are in _no_ position to criticize."

"But I am."

"Oh, hi, Coral Sea," Iowa said, neatly pivoting on her heel to look... up at the carrier. Annoying, that.

"Don't 'hi' me, Iowa," the carrier snapped. "There are basic uniform regulations even shipgirls have to follow; regulations you are willfully flouting. And since I was recently commissioned as an officer-"

"That's nice," Iowa interrupted, before grabbing Coral Sea by her lapels and yanking her in close, her old snarl on again. "But you're forgetting something _, ensign_. I fucking outrank you, and I can have you scrubbing the Reagan's flight deck with a goddamn _toothbrush_ if I want to. And that's me being fucking _nice_. You want to fucking see me being _not_ nice? Go ask Northampton... if she still doesn't go into fucking PTSD flashbacks."

"W-Well, clearly I'm overstating the issue," Coral Sea nervously stammered out. "J-Just, be careful. W-We don't want another clam-flapping on live camera."

Coral Sea's lapels fell from Iowa's numb fingers, and the entire cafeteria was treated to the mesmerizing sight of her taking in a _very_ deep breath.

 _"I HAD A MOTHERFUCKING WARDROBE MALFUNCTION AND NOBODY FUCKING TOLD ME?!"  
_  
"How long has she held that persona, again?" Indiana wondered.

"Eleven days, two hours, and fifty-three minutes," South Dakota smugly replied. "Which means I get the pot~!"


	448. Rule 1617

**Rule 1617. While the Yamato and Enterprise's little bundle of joy is indeed a very cute baby, don't visit her without Yamato's permission.  
**  
It had started just before dinner. Akashi had been packing up to go eat in the mess for once when Enterprise had half-hauled a staggering Yamato into her workshop, the battleship red-faced and sweating.

"It's happening!" had all been Enterprise needed to say to set Akashi a-running, as well as calling up the obstetrician she had on call for exactly this reason. The next several hours were a blur, broken by Yamato's groans of exertion and the screaming of metal under assault.

In the end, it was the wee hours of the morning, everyone but the obstetrician was exhausted (she was asleep), and Yamato had been moved to a bed that _wasn't_ a twisted pile of scrap metal, holding her baby in her arms.

"So," Akashi asked from where she was sprawled out on one of the room's chairs. "What did you decide to name her?"

"Yoshino..." Yamato said softly as she stroked the baby's hair.

"There was a bit of negotiation on that," Enterprise added as she fondly watched her girlfriend and daughter. "We agreed that whoever carries the baby gets to name her."

Akashi raised an eyebrow. "You seem quite sure that you'll get another daughter."

The look Enterprise shot her way was flatter than the state of Illinois. "We have exactly fuck and all Y-chromosomes between us," she answered. "This is, like, basic genetics."

"Well, excuse me for assuming MSSB might take care of that little detail," Akashi said, rolling her eyes.

A loud sound, somewhat similar to a chainsaw with gravel in its mechanisms trying to cut through rebar, sounded out from the bed, which immediately set little Yoshino a'crying.

"I'll handle this," Akashi stated as Enterprise flinched and reached for her baby. "You get to hold off on being a parent for a little longer."

"Sounds-" Enterprise let out a massive yawn, and slumped down on Yamato's legs. "Sounds great. Sleepy."

Smiling brightly at the scene, Akashi slowly eased Yoshino out of her mother's hands and began rocking her, the motion quickly lulling the newborn to sleep.

"That's a good girl," she cooed, before yawning widely herself. "Mmph, I'd better get to bed myself..."

And with that, Akashi trudged out, not expecting any trouble. And in fairness to the repair ship, nobody really knew that Aso was as stealthy as she was. Case in point, her dropping from the ceiling and then standing over the sleeping family, her face twisted in an ugly glower.

"I _despise_ you," she snarled at Enterprise, her hand twitching for the wakizashi she had tucked in her belt. "As if not having the decency to roll over and die during the War wasn't enough, you also sullied our national symbol as well?" Her glare shifted to Yoshino. "Then again... tainted by gaijin blood though she is, your daughter would probably make an _excellent_ fighter. I just need to-"

Aso immediately terminated her reach for Yoshino as Yamato cracked one eye open, the shining orb promising sudden and painful death to the carrier.

A fun fact about Aso: given Yamato was the symbol of the country, and most of the time the ideal _yamato nadeshiko_ , Aso practically revered the ground the battleship walked on. The mere thought of even _disrespecting_ Yamato practically sent her into convulsions. Confronted with her raw _anger_ , it's a wonder she didn't melt into a puddle right there.

Instead, she clasped her hands together, bowed, plastered on an apologetic expression, and began shuffling backwards as fast as she could. "A-A thousand apologies, Yamato-sama. Y-Your daughter, I wanted t-to see her, and she was so cute, and-"

Yamato's eye closed, Aso breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned and bolted. She'd get another opportunity. Later.

~o~

"Awwww!" Kongo and Ashigara cooed as Yoshino pawed at them. "She's adorable!"

"Isn't she just?" Enterprise preened.

"I'll be the godmo-"

Both shipgirls paused and shot identical blistering glares at each other.

"Oh, so the Hungry Wolf wants to muscle in on my territory?" Kongo practically snarled.

"Your territory, granny?" Ashigara shot back.

The two locked foreheads, sparks flying between them. "There's only one way to settle this, you old biddy," Ashigara began.

Then Yamato cleared her throat.

Both shipgirls glanced towards the battleship, who was merely smiling beatifically at them. "No, go on," she said. "How were you going to settle this?"

"By... talking it out like rational adults?" Kongo offered.

"I'm glad to hear that!" Yamato chirped.

Nodding stiffly, Kongo and Ashigara both excused themselves, and once they were outside both heaved massive sighs of relief and leaned on each other.

"Holy shit Yamato's even scarier than before!" Ashigara exclaimed. "I think we'd better work this out peacefully, or who knows what she'd do?"

"I think having one of her AP shells shoved so far up our rears that we taste them would just be the start," Kongo shuddered.


	449. Rule 1618

**Rule 1618. "Anvil Tossing" is now on the Banned Competition list.  
**  
Aso sighed to herself as she mulled over the problem of Yoshino: namely, how to get her away without Yamato finding out. Which... she was getting nowhere at, considering the little tyke was going to be glued to Yamato's chest almost 24/7 for the next six months, at least.

"Ugh!" she growled, throwing her hands up. "There's gotta be a way! There's just gotta!"

Suddenly, there was a whistling sound, and she looked up to see a cast-iron anvil six feet from her and on a trajectory to her face.

"Aw..." she groaned, before the heavy lump of iron smacked into her face, the momentum sending her skidding into a back wall, cracking it.

She slid down into a slumping position, and whimpered in pain as the anvil slid off her face and onto her thighs. "Gnnnnnnnn..."

"Oh, shoot!" she dimly heard through the blinding agony. It sounded destroyer-like. "Dammit, Kako, you overdid it!"

"Hey, you said there wasn't anyone in throwing range!" another voice shot back.

"There wouldn't have been if you hadn't added 20% more power to it!" An angry sigh. "Right, whatever. Is she alive?"

Something brushed against her tenderized face and lifted the anvil off her legs before probing them, drawing another pained whimper out of Aso.

"Well, her legs aren't broken, but, uh... I think her face has separated from the rest of her skull. In pieces. A bunch of pieces."

"Yeah, right."

"Well, let's just get her to Akashi, okay?"

~o~

Even with Akashi's assurances, Aso couldn't help but rub her face as she left the repair docks. Each lack of pain and lack of movement assured her that she was patched up. Maybe going after Yoshino wasn't such a good idea, if it netted her this kind of negative karma.

This time, Aso had no warning whistle as a massive log came out of the sky and smacked into the back of the head, sending her skidding face-first into another wall.

"Aw, shoot! I threw it the wrong way!" she heard Take yell as she came up.

"Yeah, that's an issue with some beginners," an unfamiliar voice with a slight accent remarked. Then the pressure of the log eased, and Aso found herself propped up, a blond head coming into view.

"Alright, how many fingers am I holding up?" Edinburgh asked.

Vision swimming, Aso grasped one thing: foreigner. "Fuck you, you damn dirty gaijin..." she slurred.

"Yup, definitely a concussion," Edinburgh deadpanned.

"Ah, no, she's always like that," Take remarked. "Whatever. Let's get to Akashi. Her face looks like someone ran an industrial sander over it."

~o~

By the two-week mark, Aso had taken to wearing a hard hat and looking up constantly, and she'd seriously considered asking the Yuubaris to refit her with an armored conning tower. The week had seen her bombarded by extra-heavy shot puts, kaibokan escorts, boulders, and, on one memorable occasion, a sharpened shovel. She shuddered; she never wanted to see her own intestines again. Luckily, the day passed eventfully, and she began to relax-

And then Yamato came out of the sky and squashed the carrier under her ample stern.

"Okay, where am I...?" Yamato wondered, standing up and looking around. "Oh, wow, E got quite a bit of distance."

A pained whimper drew her attention down, and Yamato saw Aso's sprawled-out, bleeding form lying on the cracked concrete, her hard hat jammed into her neck. An evil smile spread across the battleship's face.

"All according to keikaku..."


	450. Rule 1626

**Rule 1626. At Fubuki's request, please do not give any more Snow White-related items to her sister Shirayuki. She's got nowhere else to put any more.  
**  
"Aw! You're so cute!"

Despite the fact that she was being pressed into Iowa's cleavage - or perhaps because of - Shirayuki found she liked this version of Iowa more. This version was huggy and friendly, rather than surly and unpleasant and very dismissive of destroyers that weren't named William D. Porter.

"Alright!" the battleship said, pushing the destroyer away from her. "I have a gift for you!"

Shirayuki wasn't sure _where_ Iowa was keeping the rather sizable present, as her outfit didn't have a whole lot of space for pockets, but she ignored that as the battleship pulled out and handed a wrapped box. The destroyer nodded, took it, and bowed, saying "Thank you for the gift."

"No problem!" Iowa chirped, shooting a thumbs up and then waving goodbye.

Shirayuki took the opportunity to poke a hole into the box and look in. The sight of what was inside prompted a sigh, and she turned around to head back to the room she shared with some of her sisters. Hatsuyuki was curled up on the couch when she opened the door and didn't even grunt a hello, but Fubuki immediately brightened at the sight of her. "Welcome ba-!"

The destroyer cut herself off at the sight of the present in Shirayuki's hands, and sighed. "What's in it this time?"

Instead of saying anything, Shirayuki tore open the festive wrapping paper and pulled out a pack of sheets, the Disney versions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs emblazoned on it.

"She got more Snow White stuff again, didn't she," Hatsuyuki drawled from the couch, still not looking up.

"Yes," Fubuki sighed, with a pointed glance towards their closet. "Alright, do you want this put with the rest of the stuff, or...?"

"Um, actually, I'd like to use them on my bed," Shirayuki answered, poking her fingers together. "They look really soft, and, uh, there's not really much space left in our closet."

"True," Fubuki replied, before muttering under her breath, "Note to self: look into some off-base storage to rent..."

"Oh, by the way, Fubuki," Hatsuyuki added. "You got a letter today." Reaching between the cushions, the destroyer retrieved and tossed the letter to Fubuki. "Congrats on your promotion, _commander._ "

Catching the letter, Fubuki tore it open and scanned the message. A grin spread across her face, and then laughter bubbled up from her chest.

"Heheheheheh... hahahahahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

As abruptly as it had begun, the laughter petered out, and Fubuki let out an embarrassed cough. "Right, first things first, new rule for The List," she stated. "No more Snow White merchandise for Shirayuki. Seriously, it's getting out of hand."


	451. Rule 1627

**Rule 1627. Ship girls are forbidden from participating in robotics competitions. You know why.  
**  
Las Vegas was not built on any fault lines, and was located well away from any volcanoes. Thus, not only were the buildings were not designed to withstand them, only the West Coast tourists had any idea what to do when one hit.

Then again, the two robots brawling down the Strip were something of a bigger concern.

One was white, its head bearing a strong resemblance to a samu- alright, it was a Gundam. You all know what that looks like. The other robot, while of the same size, was boxier, gunmetal gray, and had no head, as well as various weapons barrels sticking out of its arms and torso.

The Gundam charged forward with speed and grace nothing that size should have possessed, landing a heavy punch to its opponents' torso.

 _"Just give up already!"_ Yuubari's voice sounded out from the speakers.

The grey robot staggered on its feet, but recovered and lashed out with one of its weapons, a ruby-red laser that slagged a portion of the Gundam's armor.

 _"You give up, if you're tired of this!"_ Gneisenau shot back.

In answer, Yuubari withdrew a beam saber and ignited it. Across the street, Gneisenau ignited a plasma blade of her own.

How, you may be wondering, did two shipgirl Mad Scientists end up brawling in giant robots on The Strip? The answer was simple: Battlebots was in town for the fourth season of the revived series. Add in the chronic lack of judgement endemic to mad scientists of all stripes and shipgirl competitiveness, and you had a recipe for escalation. Words were exchanged, mistakes were made, and what had been the championship of the heavyweight bracket was now... this.

Beam saber met plasma lance in a shower of sparks that melted holes in the asphalt and any unlucky cars within spitting range. People had mostly retreated to a safe distance and were busily taking videos with their smartphones.

Of course, one slipup, one stray laser beam, and a whole lot of people were going to be dead. Not to mention the already extant property damage. As such, the relevant authorities had started moving the minute the two robots smashed out of the arena Battlebots had been leasing for the tournament.

High above, a single F-35 had just dropped out of supersonic flight, its bay doors opening to release a pair of very special munitions. The pilot had little trouble seeing the two robots, and he made the necessary adjustments before pressing the launch button.

In the bays, the bomb racks opened, releasing Missouri and Wisconsin to fall to the Earth. Their weight granting them speed, by the time they landed they were going at almost supersonic speeds.

*CRUNCH*

And both mechs's fictional counterparts had been destroyed by far lesser forces.

"Aw, man, it's gonna take forever to get oil out of these boots!" Wisconsin whined as she yanked her feet out of the wreckage of Gneisenau's mech.

"Quit complaining," Missouri said as she hauled an unconscious Yuubari out of the wreckage of her Gundam's cockpit. "We were given a mission and orders to carry it out."

"Yeah, but it's the principle of the thing."


	452. Rule 1628

**Rule 1628. No, you may not sign a contract with that cat-like furball in exchange for a wish.  
**  
Kiyoshimo wondered how she'd found herself in this situation. It seemed more like something one of the chuuniboats would get involved in. One minute she'd been minding her own business in some neighborhood in Tokyo, and the next she was standing in some sort of... not a sewer, it was too big and too dry. A catacomb, maybe? Catacomb worked, and it was a very creepy one, with shelves full of bones and green-tinged fog that obscured both her optics and her radar. The whole thing seemed decayed, and seemed to curve if she looked too far.

In all, it seemed like a well-made horror game environment.

"Okay, seriously, what the fuck," the destroyer muttered to herself.

A skittering sound caught her attention, and then a rat spilled out of the fog, chittering angrily at her. Except this rat was like something out of a nightmare, black with red eyes and rotten splotches on its fur, it's teeth long and yellow, and the size of a Maine Coon. More importantly, it had brought friends. Lots of friends.

Of course, rats, even ones this big and mean, weren't all that much threat to a shipgirl, as Kiyoshimo demonstrated by summoning her rigging and opening fire with her AA guns. Her five-inchers were overkill, and her torpedoes not of much use on land, but Bofors and Oerlikon guns were ideal for this sort of crowd control. Stepping over their fading bodies, she began to look for a way out.

Several minutes later, Kiyoshimo could admit she was might be in trouble. The rats were endless, she didn't have infinite ammo, and the catacomb made most mazes look sane.

"For fuck's sake!" she snapped as she came to yet another dead end. A dead end that didn't make _any goddamn sense_ , according to her thoroughly confused navigational fairies. "Ah, fuck it. Time for a different plan."

Walking up to the dead end, she reared back and punched it as hard as she could. The brickwork crumbled under the blow, drawing a piercing, ear-bleeding shriek from... somewhere. The crumbling wall revealed a swirling zone black and red energy studded with slick, moss-colored pillars and crawling with those damn rats.

"Please tell me this is where the boss is..." Kiyoshimo muttered as she hopped in, squashing some of the rats underfoot. A mad cackle drew her attention, and she turned around to see a giant Victorian Doll hanging upside down above her.

"Okay, seriously, what the fuck," Kiyoshimo grumbled. "At least it doesn't look that threaten-"

A few seconds later, Kiyoshimo blinked at the thing from her position stuck upside down in one of the pillars, blood trickling from her nose. "Right, actually threatening, got it," she muttered as she levered herself out of the stone. The destroyer could see the thing open its mouth, but her turrets were faster, firing six shells downrange while her AA guns hosed down the oncoming rat swarm.

At such close range, none of the shells missed, one going into the thing's open mouth and all engulfing it in a fireball of shrapnel. It shrieked, a piercing shriek that seemed to go straight into Kiyoshimo's brain and forced her to her knees.

 _'Sound...'_ she realized. _'It fights with sound.'  
_  
The giant doll, battered, scorched, but very much still functional, opened its mouth, and Kiyoshimo knew that the imminent shout was one that could shred metal and pulp organs. She wasn't sure if she could survive it, and definitely didn't want to find out. But she couldn't _move_ , her ears ringing in an unforeseen human weakness.

And then a red spearhead skewered the doll through the skull.

The spear was followed, as the doll crumbled into dust on the wind, leaving behind some sort of odd gem-thingy, by a red-haired teenage girl in a red dress, a red jewel prominently displayed on her chest. And then the entire catacomb collapsed, leaving them on a... rooftop?

"Thanks for the save," Kiyoshimo grunted as she hauled herself to her feet, her damcon fairies already patching up her ears.

"No problem," the redhead answered, her outfit and weapon fading into a grey hoodie and denim shorts. "You're one of those shipgirls, aren't you?"

"Yup," Kiyoshimo answered, watching intently as the redhead held the gem that had dropped from the creepy doll thing to her own gem. The black threads running between them did not escape her.

"That's good. I haven't gotten a chance to contract one of you, and I'm curious to see what would happen."

Kiyoshimo jumped slightly at the high-pitched voice behind her, and turned around to see a white cat... rabbit... thing with beady red eyes sitting on the edge of the roof, swishing its tail and staring intently at her.

 _'God, that's creepy.'  
_  
"Oh, hey Kyubey," the redhead greeted, tossing the gem at it. "Grief Seed for ya."

The cat-bunny plucked the Grief Seed out of the air and began munching on it, still staring at Kiyoshimo. "So, would you like to make a contract? A wish, in exchange for becoming a magical girl!"

Now, had this been Kiyoshimo even a few months ago she'd have jumped all over the chance to become a battleship. But this was a Kiyoshimo taught by painful experience that wishes tended to be poisonous. Thus she had been paying attention, and the similarity between the redhead's transformation gem and the Grief Seed was raising the general quarters alarms. So Kiyoshimo gave into instinct.

Raising her foot, she brought it down on the bunnycat's head in a spray of blood and gore.

The redhead raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't say anything. "That's probably the third-worst reaction to a contract offer I've ever seen," she remarked.

"Whatever," Kiyoshimo huffed. "How d'you feel about getting a bite to eat? My treat, since you saved my ass in there."

The redhead's eyes lit up. "Fuck yeah!"

~o~

The next time Kiyoshimo saw the bunnycat, it was back on base, and she captured it and hauled it over to the Yuubaris.

"I think it's some sort of body network," she explained. "I squished an identical body under my boot the other day."

"And you want us to do... what, exactly, with it?" Yuubari asked.

"Tear it open and find its secrets," Kiyoshimo deadpanned. "Duh."

The twin light cruisers shared glances, and then shared smiles that had way too many teeth to be comfortable.

"This is something we've never seen before," one Yuubari pointed out.

"And that _is_ the great draw of SCIENCE!" the other agreed.

As one, they turned towards the trussed up Kyubey Kiyoshimo had dropped off, and the destroyer herself skedaddled before the screams and viscera could start flying.


	453. Rule 1629

**Rule 1629. You may not spearhead invasions of parallel dimensions.**

"So, what have you nutbars cooked up this time?" Ooyodo asked.

"Well, our studies on that bunnycat thing-"

"Mrrghl..."

Yuubari pressed a button on the remote she was holding, sending a controlled electric shock through the trussed-up Incubator on their lab bench. The pained shriek it produced was quite gratifying.

"Still trying to figure out how to piggyback that hivemind," Yuubari muttered. "Anyway, our studies of it show that it's less a hivemind and more endless recursion of parallel entities. And that gave us a bit of a breakthrough on something we've been poking at for a while now."

"Behold!" the other Yuubari declared, indicating a heavily modified TV. "A means to view alternate dimensions!"

Ooyodo's eyes widened, and a wide grin spread across her face. "Okay, that's cool," she admitted. "So, what are we looking at first?"

"Something a little... familiar," Yuubari replied, tapping a few keys and bringing up an image of Kaga in full battleship livery accompanied by a pair of unfamiliar battleships with a strong resemblance to Kirishima and Hiei. "We chose this one first because we had some bio samples to key onto."

The light cruiser nodded, remembering well the sudden arrival of parallel dimension visitors a while back.

"The closer it is to our reality, the easier it is to view," Yuubari continued, switching images. This time, the feed was of an unfamiliar British carrier launching equally unfamiliar planes, the presence of Richelieu next to said carrier making things even odder. "This one, near as we can tell, diverged sometime in the 1930s when the FAA decided to take things seriously."

The next feed was of Abyssals crawling through a nature preserve, except from the view of Mt. Fuji they were in downtown Yokohama.

"This one's from the aftermath of a Downfall invasion," Yuubari answered the unspoken question, grimacing . "It's pretty depressing."

The feed switched again, featuring a giant Cthuloid monster rising above a burning city.

"We have no idea what happened here, and we're not inclined to find out."

The feed switched again, this time to the inside of a bunker with a stasis pod-esque device, some blue-haired teenager who looked like he'd walked off a Mad Max set, and Murakumo. Or, at least, some alternate version of Murakumo.

"What's going on in this-" Ooyodo began, only to fall silent as the Mad Max teenager drew some weird knife and began advancing on Murakumo. "Shit! Can you get me there?!"

"On it!" the unoccupied Yuubari barked, diving into a cabinet and throwing out bits of junk. "Okay, need this... and that... may need that... SOLDERING IRON!"

"Soldering iron!" Ooyodo parrotted, rushing the tool over.

"Shit, too late!" Yuubari-on-console-duty spat, both other shipgirls turning around just in time to see the Mad Max teen plunge the knife into Murakumo's head, a thin trickle of blood running down from her scalp.

Yuubari and Ooyodo exchanged murderous glances, and went back to work. Even the console Yuubari reporting that the parallel Murakumo seemed fine didn't stop them, and within minutes, they had a projector-like device set up and hooked into the screen. Though calling it a projector was probably still apt, considering it was projecting, well, a portal of some kind.

"Make it fast," Yuubari stated. "I don't know how long this'll hold together."

"Got it," Ooyodo nodded, before stepping through.

~o~

Damon Polchow was a pleased postapocalyptic survivor as he and his new shipgirl, Murakumo, ascended out of the basement he'd found her in. Her lack of armaments was a problem, but not a serious or unexpected one.

"Are you equipped with anything you can defend yourself with?" he asked once they were in the ruined house itself.

"It seems I only have my mainmast," she said, sounding annoyed. As the two exited the house, he heard her come to a stop, and turned around to see her staring out at the hazy sky and dusty land. "... Is this what the world looks like now?"

"Been this way all my life," he shrugged. "What, were you expecting anything different?"

"The people who built me put in memory receptors that held sights and other sensory cues about what the world looked like in their time," was the answer, the destroyer girl looking melancholy. "They wanted us to be able to operate as normal humans in society when we were off duty. That's why I'm not used to seeing the world like this."

"Us?" Damon echoed, eyes narrowing. "Who's us?"

Murakumo opened her mouth to answer, but another voice beat them to the punch.

"So, there are more shipgirls in this world. Something for the future."

Damon whirled around again, hand shooting towards the gun on his hip and eyes taking in the woman in front of him. She could be best described as "willowy", tall and with long legs encased in odd leather stockings. She wore white sailor top and blue skirt, as well as a pair of rectangular glasses. But what caught his attention - and really put him on edge - was the hangar attached to her back, the catapult on her arm, and the two triple turrets attached to her waist, as well as the thunderous scowl on her face.

"Ooyodo?!" he heard Murakumo exclaim behind him.

Another shipgirl, then. Then Damon's brain skipped a beat as he saw the _hole in the air_ behind her, leading into what appeared to be a machine shop of some kind. Something screwy was definitely going on.

"The one and only," Ooyodo replied. "For my world, anyway."

Any further talk was cut off by the roar of approaching truck engines, a battered Ford pickup and an equally battered large van rolling up the cracked street escorted by a few men in hazmat suits.

"Friends of yours?" Ooyodo asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hell no," Damon spat, reaching onto his back for his rifle. "Just a buncha looting, hostage-taking fuckwits looking to profit off everyone else's misery."

"Oh, well that's good," the light cruiser replied as she levelled her triple turrets at the oncoming trucks. "Then I won't feel guilty about this."

The right turret roared, the blast of the cordite assaulting Damon's ears. In the time it took him to blink, the 155mm shells traveled the distance between the house and the road and then exploded milliseconds after hitting the ground - and in one shell's case, the van. These being 155mm shells, the resulting roaring explosion neatly obliterated any sign of the raiders.

"Well, that's that!" Ooyodo declared, looking quite pleased. Then she turned to Damon with her angry expression back on, and the teen felt an unusual emotion - fear - shoot through him. His trusty rifle was suddenly looking decidedly inadequate. "Now, I'll be taking Murakumo and heading home."

"Excuse me?!" Damon demanded, hot anger flooding through his system and shoving the fear aside. "I found her, I claimed her, she's _mine!"  
_  
Suddenly, Ooyodo was six inches from him and, despite being shorter than Damon, grabbed him by his threadbare t-shirt and hauled him off his feet and in close. "Listen up, you little blue-haired _shitstain_ ," she growled. "I am trying very hard to resist the urge to _turn you into chunky salsa, and YOU ARE NOT HELPING!_ So if you want to walk away from this alive and uncrippled, I recommend you sit down and shut up!"

It was at this point that Damon finally did something very stupid: he grabbed his pistol, aimed it at Ooyodo's gut, and fired three times.

"Bad idea," Ooyodo snarled, and her hands gripped his neck and squeezed. There was a moment of pain, and then blackness.

~o~

As Ooyodo dropped Damon's lifeless body to the ground, Murakumo found herself... conflicted. On the one hand, Ooyodo had just killed her Admiral, and her reprogrammed brain was screaming at her to do something about that. On the other hand, the guy was an asshole who'd stabbed her in the head. That would have probably been a dealbreaker had it not been for said reprogramming.

"So," Ooyodo said, turning to face her. "Want to live in a world that _isn't_ a Mad Max radioactive hellhole?"

It took the destroyer all of five seconds to decide after that.

~o~

"Denied," Admiral Goto flatly stated.

"But Admiral-!" Ooyodo tried.

"Honestly, I expected this from Kiso or one of my other crazier girls, not you," Goto stated, his secretary ship reeling back as if struck.

"I can still stay, right?" Murakumo asked, raising her hand.

"Of course. What's done is done," Admiral Goto kindly answered. "But I am not tying down any of my shipgirls by having them charge after every extradimensional damsel in distress."

Screams echoed from the concourse outside, and all three inhabitants rushed to the nearest window to behold a red and black portal spewing forth demonic abominations.

"Now, to eliminate a clear and present danger, on the other hand..." Goto amended.


	454. Rule 1632

**Rule 1632. Pensacola, you are not allowed to maim, murder, or otherwise inflict great physical harm upon allied shipgirls.**

"- so then I started looking up his music videos and _oh my god he's so hot_ terrible singer but _so hot_ which is all that matters when we're talking David Hasselhoff, but eventually even the music videos weren't doing it for me, so I had to-"

 _'Don't maim her, she's an ally,'_ Pensacola chanted to herself as Scharnhorst blathered on. _'Don't murder her, she's an ally. Don't sic my alligator on her, she's an ally...'  
_  
"- Gneisenau still won't let me use her Gustavs, that meany, I mean, that stupid Rock Fortress Princess gets one, and she's a pathetic waste of Abyssal material, though I guess she did kill all those cruisers trying to get through the straights, so there's at least _one_ badass bone in her body, probably a finger bone, or one of those little ones in your ear, or maybe-"

Of course, it was getting harder and harder to not snap and smash that stupid battleship's face into the table the longer she talked. Good god, didn't she breathe?

Right. Forced ventilation.

"- and I was thinking, why don't we _talk_ to the demons, why do we have to just shoot them, I mean, yeah, the Doom Marine is pissed and all, but give peace a chance this isn't Wolfenstein Nazis don't deserve that chance those are guys you just shoot whenever and I'm saying this as a German so you know that I-"

 _'I could crush her ribcage into her lungs and make her drown in her own blood.'  
_  
"- oh my god pop backwards is pop that's so cool English is amazing and also terrible 'cause it's kinda like the Borg, all 'you will be assimilated' and all, except it's with languages instead of starships and there's no Jean-Luc Picard, which is a shame because he's really easy on the eyes-"

 _'I could smash her head into the concrete until her skull cracks open and her brains leak out.'  
_  
"- and the Abrams is cool and all but that's a German gun and the Leopard has a cooler name what kind of name even is Abrams did you name it after Abraham Lincoln because if that's true then I take back the whole 'cooler name' thing, because Lincoln was an awesome dude-"

 _'I could blow her belly open with a torpedo and shove an HC shell into her magazines.'  
_  
"- saguaros are creepy they look like people when its dark out and then there are armadillos I didn't those were real I thought they were something old-timey movies made up like Dracula'n stuff, and for such an iconic film its really boring now Twilight that's-"

"Okay, that's it!" Pensacola roared, shooting to her feet and grabbing a full wine bottle in the process. In one fluid motion, she lifted the bottle and smashed it into Scharnhorst's face, repeating the motion until the bottle broke and the battleship's face was a bloody, toothless mess. Panting, she gave Scharnhorst one last kick in the ribs before lifting her up and heaving her out the cruiser's window.

"There we go," she said, dusting off her hands. "Armadillos, huh? Gotta remember that one."

~o~

"So," Admiral Holloway stated evenly. "Mind telling me why Kiso went absolutely ballistic at being taken to an Armadillo Willy's by San Francisco?"

"I couldn't say, sir," Pensacola lied through her teeth.

"Hmm. And I suppose the complaint I got from the state of Texas about someone poaching armadillos is unrelated."

"I mean, that's probably a coincidence."

"And I believe I saw you steaming mad at Kiso a few days ago."

"She insulted Davy Crockett. Words were exchanged. I was over it days ago."

Holloway nodded. "Next time, keep it to a week's physical damage, and reversible psychological harm."

Pensacola nodded as well. "Aye aye, sir."


	455. Rule 1637

**Rule 1637. You cannot explain everything with "Fairy magic".**

Hyuuga glared at the light cruiser sitting in front of her. As much as a Kai Ni light cruiser was a welcome addition to Kure's somewhat sparse and outdated forces, Kinu was already proving to be more trouble than she was worth in combat. Probably why she'd been sent down to Kure in the first place.

"So," she said. "How do you explain this?"

'This' was Rear Admiral Shimada's rather expensive Jaguar, currently sitting upside down in a very large oak tree on base, three tires missing. The officer himself was slumped at the roots of the tree, tears streaming from his eyes and his skin bone-white where it wasn't a rather unhealthy shade of blue.

"I dunno," Kinu shrugged. "Fairy magic?"

"Fairies couldn't do something like this," Hyuuga deadpanned. "Trust me, I know. So, I'm going to ask again: how do you explain this?"

Fifteen minutes later, Hyuuga flopped onto the porch outside of the heavy shipgirl dorm, which held everyone in Kure above light cruiser weight. It was also a hell of a lot nicer than the concrete slabs that the Yokosuka dorms were, being a Japanese-style house of considerable size that had once belonged to a Navy officer before his will granted it to the base. Though it picked up her mood a bit, Hyuuga was still annoyed at Kinu. The light cruiser had been tight-lipped about _how_ she'd gotten Admiral Shimada's car into that tree, though she had admitted to doing it.

Fuso and Yamashiro hadn't taken well to that, and they were busy handling the discipline. Hyuuga's mood brightened a bit as she realized that would keep the two Eeyores out of her hair for the foreseeable future. Ise, for all her airheadedness, was at least tolerable without those two adding to the feedback loop.

Then her mood soured again as her mind wandered to the rumors coming out of Yokosuka; in particular, the stories about a certain carrier, Aso. That quick, live soundbite about the Holocaust was all she could actually confirm, and that was bad enough.

Some of the rumors coming from Yokosuka put even that little episode to shame.

"HELLLOOOO, HYUUGA!"

Speak of the devil. Hyuuga turned to see Aso waving and running up to the dorm, and the battleship silently resolved to give the young carrier at least a chance.

"Ah, hello, Aso," Hyuuga answered. "What brings you to Kure?"

"Oh, y'know, the usual," Aso said dismissively. "Visit Kyoto, meet Yamato's third sister, Shinano, see if the Kure base has been as brainwashed as Yokosuka..."

Hyuuga's brain came to a screeching halt, part of it idly noting that the last of those was not like the others.

"Wait, what?" the battleship asked in a strangled voice.

"Yeah, brainwashed," Aso said sadly with a sigh. "They've tried to get at me, tried to convince me that Chinese aren't worthless subhumans to be exterminated and stuff like that, but I'm too strong for that!"

 _'Wait,_ what?!' _  
_  
"Yeah, don't worry about that," Aso continued, completely misinterpreting the slack-jawed look on Hyuuga's face. "I've made plans! Lots of 'em!"

"What... kind of plans?" Hyuuga managed to get out.

"Well, I've been scouting out the Chinese coastal defenses..."

 _'When?!'  
_  
"Had my planes flying over 'em, y'know..."

 _'Oh no...'  
_  
"They don't even have any shipgirls! We could just waltz in and shell the Pearl River delta or Shanghai!"

 _'She didn't!'  
_  
"Gonna need to send a few subs to nab those nukes, but now that I know where they are that shouldn't be hard."

 _'She did!'  
_  
"Once that's done, we can go ahead and re-establish the Co-Prosperity sphere! Too bad that Duterte guy isn't around anymore, he'd be a nice puppet..."

 _'You're fulfilling all the stereotypes, you racist-ass bird farm!'  
_  
Very carefully tying not to crush the wooden porch under her grip, as that would give away her anger, Hyuuga considered her options. She could punch the little shitbag, but that would solve nothing. She'd have to tackle this at the source.

"I see, I see," she said with very forced geniality. "Would you like to come inside?"

"Sure!" Aso chirped, following Hyuuga as she entered the dorm and headed for one of the sitting areas. On their way, they passed by Chitose, and Hyuuga took a moment to drop back and whisper in the light carrier's ear.

"Rumors about Aso confirmed. Might need backup. Keep an eye out, okay?"

Chitose's eyes widened, and she nodded, leaving Hyuuga to catch up, Aso oblivious to her brief absence. The sitting room was soon reached, and the two sat down, Aso practically quivering in place. "So, so! What'd you think of my plans, huh?"

"Well, I'm sure the intel guys will appreciate them..." Hyuuga hedged, which prompted a shining smile from Aso. "I just wanted to clarify some things. So, the Chinese are..."

"Subhuman scum that we need to clear out," Aso cheerily answered.

"Okay... what about Koreans?"

"Workforce!"

"Vietnamese?"

"Children we should shepherd into proper civilization and out of their mud huts."

Out the corner of her eye, Hyuuga noted Chitose gaping in stunned disbelief. "And... Americans?"

Fire sprang into Aso's eyes - literally - and she stood to her feet, jabbing a finger in the air. "They are the enemy! The foreign devils trying to keep us from our rightful destiny! They must be cleansed from the Earth if we Japanese are to claim what's ours!"

Hyuuga picked her jaw up off the table and forced out one last question. "And... Africans?"

"What are Africans?" Aso asked, her face a mask of sincere confusion.

This time, the battleship didn't restrain her first reaction, which was to rub her temples. "You do realize the Japanese people don't actually have any kind of grand 'destiny', right? And that what you're advocating is all kinds of wrong?"

"You lost me," Aso immediately replied.

Hyuuga twitched, and hastily stood. "Excuse me," she said, before bolting out the door and closing it behind her. As she choked back snarls of outrage, Chitose found her voice.

"She's joking, right? Please tell me she's joking."

"She's not," Hyuuga groaned. "Fuck, I need a drink." Taking a deep breath, she opened the door again, absently noting someone else sidling up to them. "Okay, Aso, a question: a ship is sinking in the open ocean. What do you do?"

"Save everyone on board, of course," the carrier answered. "That's what any decent person would do."

"Right... if the boat is a Filipino ferry...?"

"Same. Do you know how many people they cram in those things? It's crazy! Hiei did a good job with that rant."

Hyuuga relaxed somewhat. Finally, some normal responses. "And if it's an American cruise ship?"

"Punch some 5" shells into that fucker, make it go down faster!" Aso snarled. "And then have my fighters machine-gun whoever's left!"

Hyuuga promptly excused herself from the room, barely batting an eyelid at the sight of a gape-mouthed, suit-clad Wreck.

[Okay, what the fuck!] the Abyssal snapped. [I'm a motherfucking primordial Abyssal, running a presidential campaign on the slogan 'Why choose the lesser evil', and even _I_ think that carrier's more nuts than a Hershey factory!]

"Jesus, how far does this rabbit hole go?" Chitose muttered.

As one, carrier and Abyssal turned back to Hyuuga, who sighed. "Alright, but someone needs to get me some booze. I'm not doing this sober."

Ten minutes later, Hyuuga slid the door open again, now fortified by a half-liter of sake. She found Aso on her stomach, writing something in a notebook. "What's that?" she asked.

"Oh, just my plans for Yoshino."

Once again, Hyuuga's train of thought derailed spectacularly. "... What?"

"Y'know, Yamato's baby?" Aso rolled her eyes. "C'mon, you have to keep up with base gossip."

"Why... do you have... plans... for Yoshino...?"

"She's Yamato's daughter, and has awesome carrier DNA spliced in, tainted though it is by that _thrice-damned_ gaijin," Aso answered. "She's going to be super-strong and a symbol to the entire nation, and I need to co-opt that early if I want my plans to work."

Aaaaand she'd need a _lot_ more sake to deal with that. As she stepped out again, Chitose and Wreck were identical masks of barely-restrained fury.

Shinano was icy cold, and that was much more scary.

"One punch," she growled. "That's all I need."

"Don't tempt me," Hyuuga sighed. "Okay, we need to-"

"Hey, what's up!"

Wreck, Shinano, Hyuuga, and Chitose turned around to find Hiei, Musashi, and Hosho walking towards them with curious expressions.

[Aso wants to brainwash Yoshino into the vanguard of a revival of the Japanese Empire at its worst,] Wreck deadpanned, bringing the trio to a screeching halt.

"What," Hiei ground out.

Wordlessly, Musashi retrieved a photo of the newborn and handed it to Hyuuga, who re-entered the room Aso was in and showed it to her.

"Yessssss..." Aso hissed, hunching over the photo. "Soon, you and I will be dancing in the ruins of Beijing together!"

 _'Okay, that's it!'  
_  
"I shall gather you a harem of the finest Korean men! Or women, I won't judge. You can even add me if you want~"

For the third time that day, Hyuuga's train of thought derailed and exploded.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" she roared, her temper finally snapping. "Bad enough you're still going on about that Co-Prosperity Sphere nonsense and all your other racist bullshit, but now you're talking about grooming a fucking _baby_ to not only enact your fucking _atrocities_ , but to become some... BDSM master?!"

Aso blinked in confusion. "And?"

"GAH!"

"I have seen a great many things in my life," Hosho muttered as Hyuuga stormed back out into the hall. "Terrible things we inflicted and had inflicted upon us. Somehow, this is worse than all of them. I had no idea she was _this_ bad. How...?"

"Well, that she was laid down late in the war when the Imperial military was at its most insanely desperate probably has something to do with it," Hiei pointed out, looking green. "And unlike Kasagi, who was 80% complete and thus stayed aware in... wherever it is our spirits were summoned from, her being 60% complete probably wasn't enough for her to remain aware."

"Can I please kill her know?" Musashi snarled.

"I have a favor with the Yuubaris I can call in," Chitose added.

"No," Hyuuga denied. "That'll only cause more problems. We need to get her to change her ways somehow." The battleship tapped her chin in thought. "Right. I'm calling in the big guns. You girls give it a shot, okay?"

"Wait..." Hiei said, a characteristic shit-eating grin spreading over her face. "I'm assuming you're talking about Kongo, Kaga, and Yamato?"

"Yes?" Hyuuga said.

"What's the emergency?"

Everyone but Hiei jumped at Kongo's voice suddenly sounding out, and they all whirled around to see the fast battleship standing in the hall, a wobbly Yamato and Kaga behind her.

"Aso," the gathered shipgirls chorused.

The reactions were immediate and appropriate. Yamato sighed, Kongo slapped her hand to her face, and Kaga pulled a bottle of pure grain alcohol and chugged it down.

"I'll go first," the fleet carrier slurred, staggering into the room and opening with a slurred "You suck."

"Not again!" Aso wailed.

~o~

 _Ten minutes later  
_  
[I've seen the worst parts of the Abyss. Somehow you top all of them,] Wreck stated.

"If you truly believe all of what you've said, then I simply don't have the words strong enough," Hosho said.

"I've met people like you in my old line of work. They weren't worth the punch it took to get them to back off," Musashi added.

"You shame your country," Hiei chimed in.

"Disgraceful," Kaga hiccuped.

"You're a creepy racist Miss Warcrimes who I will _not_ allow within fifty feet of Yoshino if I can help it!" Shinano finished.

"Traitors! You're all traitors!" Aso howled at the shipgirls and one Abyssal surrounding her. "You'll all be first in the purges!"

"This isn't working," Hyuuga muttered.

"Let me try something..." Kongo muttered, stepping forward.

"Ah, Kongo, a little help here?" Aso said around Musashi and Shinano as Kongo approached. "You're the most Japanese of Japanese ships!"

"You do know I'm English-born, right?" the battleship replied, raising an eyebrow.

Aso staggered back as if stabbed in the heart. "No!" she wailed. "It's even worse than I thought! They'd infected us from their start with their inferior gaijin genes!"

*WHAM!*

Nobody batted an eye when Wreck slammed Aso's head through the table. [Hope nobody minds,] she growled.

"No problem."

Only Yamato remained silent, in favor of stepping forward and yanking Aso's head out of the tatami mat it'd been embedded in. "Aso. We need to talk."

"Yamato-sama!" Aso barked, suddenly shooting up into attention. "What is it?!"

"You are a disgrace."

Aso's hand, up in a salute, went slack and fell to her side, her face utterly devoid of emotion. "Eh?"

"When I, Yamato, first scared you away, I thought you were merely drawn in by her cuteness like many of my fellow shipgirls," Yamato continued. "To hear your... plans for my child would have been bad enough. They are morally repugnant, viscerally disgusting, and dishonorable on a level I have never seen before. But to hear the worst rumors about your racism and enthusiasm for the worst parts of our past not only fulfilled, but _put to shame_?" Yamato shook her head. "Disgraceful. There is a reason our neighbors rightfully condemned us for trying to forget, for trying to avoid owning up to those atrocities. We were _evil,_ and they bore the brunt of it. So rest assured, Aso. If you repeat any of these beliefs where I can hear them, I, Yamato, shall request that the Emperor personally cast you out of the navy."

"Good day."

And with that, Yamato turned on her heel. "I'll be returning to my wife and child now. Do not disturb me for at least the next three days."

As Yamato slammed the sliding door behind her, Aso slumped to her knees, her eyes glassy and unfocused and her mouth every so slightly open, the rest of the gathered shipgirls simply stunned into silence.

[Daaaaaaaamn...] Wreck eventually whistled. [No survivors. There isn't enough ice in the world for that burn.]

"I think she broke Aso," Chitose remarked, waving her hand in front of Aso's face to no response.

Kaga blinked, and then shuffled over, a permanent marker suddenly clutched in her hand.

"Well, glad that's taken care of," Kongo sighed as Kaga went to town on Aso's face. "So! Hiei, what's there to do around here?"

"Well, there's this really nice boutique just a couple blocks away..."


	456. Rule 1640

**Rule 1640. Hachi is no longer allowed at library book sales.  
**  
"Uh-oh."

I-58, I-401, and I-26, better known as Goya, Shioi, and Nimu, respectively, all paused in their examination of a shop window to groan.

"What do you mean, 'uh-oh'?" Goya asked the fourth member of their little party, I-168 "Imuya".

"We lost Hachi."

A little background: five of Yokosuka's seven submarines (Iku and Yuu being otherwise occupied) had agreed to go into town to shop and bond, for once dressed in something other than swimsuits. And for the first hour, it had been going well, the subgirls cooing over clothes and waiting for an ice cream shop to show up.

"Didn't we pass a library book sale a block back?" Shioi pointed out.

That drew more groans. I-8, uncreatively known as "Hachi", was a known bibliophile, to the point she carried books with her on sortie (how she fired torpedoes from them had kept many people up at night). Confronted with a bookstore or library, she'd retreat into it for hours and require considerable coaxing to get out.

A library book sale was the worst of both worlds.

"Well, I guess we'll have to go retrieve her," Imuya sighed, drawing a sad "Auuuu!" from Goya and Nimu. Goya in particular shot one last pleading look at the swimsuit she'd been looking at in the window - a blue and white one-piece that was essentially a bandeau-topped bikini with strip of cloth connecting the two pieces - before following.

As it turned out, Shioi was right: a block behind them was a library, with carts and tables stacked full of worn books available at bargain-bin prices. Of course, none of them expected Hachi to have draped herself over one of said tables, rubbing her face a large reference book with a lewd blush on her face, purring "Books~ God I love books~" on repeat. The other four submarines could only gape in stunned horror.

"My innocence has been irrevocably scarred..." Shioi finally managed to get out.

"Somehow, this worse than the last time I walked in on Iku and Lieutenant Kamata..." Nimu contributed, shuddering. "So much wax..."

Any further comments were put on hold by a young and rather cute librarian storming up to them in high dudgeon. "Get her out of here!" she hissed. "This is a library, not a sex club for indulging fetishes!"

"Gladly," Imuya and Goya chorused, surging forward and grabbing Hachi to yank her off the table. Despite a hearty tug, though, she didn't move, though the table did. A close examination revealed her not only rubbing her face against the reference book, but also holding on for dear life to the table underneath.

"How much for this?" Goya asked, tapping the book.

"Take it for free if it'll get her out of here faster," the librarian replied.

Nodding, Goya grabbed the book and Hachi, while Shioi went to town on her fingers. It took a few minutes, but they managed to pry their fellow submarine free, book and all, and began carrying her back to base.

"This sucks," Nimu sighed, everyone else silently agreeing.


	457. Rule 1646

**Rule 1646. We know that some of the DesDivs going through puberty have started to take an interest in boys. This does not mean their cruiser supervisors, or in Tenryu's case mom, can threaten the boys they bring home.**

"Alright, girls," New Jersey announced to the destroyers of Taffy 3. "Now that you're hitting puberty, and we've got The Talk out of the way, it's time for a lesson in another subject that's going to come up a lot: boys."

Hoel, Heermann, and Johnston immediately broke out into synchronized gagging.

"Yeah, I know, I get it," New Jersey said. "You're all skeptical. How about this?" And with that, the battleship unfurled a poster of Justin Timberlake circa 2006. Hoel and Heermann exchanged confused glances, but Johnston... was drooling. Obviously drooling. "See what I mean? Anyway, right now I'm going to go over what to do when they want to do lewd things and you don't." Hoel's hand shot up into the air. "Yes?"

"But... we're shipgirls," she said. "We're, like, a zillion times stronger than them."

"That is true, and it means they can't _physically_ force you into anything," New Jersey agreed. "But coercion doesn't need to be physical, and a lot of lewd things don't actually require physical control. We'll go over all those cues later. For now, you just need to know the response." With that, Jersey snapped her fingers, and the door opened to let a very male Harder in.

"So, what's this about?" Harder asked.

"So, if a boy's getting grabby or too insistent," New Jersey continued, ignoring the sub. "Just position yourself right and do _this."  
_  
'This' was her ramming her knee into Harder's crotch, and he promptly crumpled over, clutching his groin and making a sound not unlike a leaking squeaky toy. Hoel and Johnston were starry-eyed at the sight, but Heermann raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"What if it's a _girl_ getting grabby?"

"Huh... that's a good question." Jersey tapped her chin, and then fished a thermos of hot water out of her hold. "Let's find out!"

And with that, she poured it over Harder, who immediately shrank in some spots and filled out in others.

"Alright, for that I'll only _half_ ki-"

*WHUMP!*

"MOTHERFUCK!" Harder shouted, clutching her aching groin with gritted teeth.

"Painful, but not as debilitating for women," New Jersey concluded. "Now you know!"

"Fuck all of you..."

~o~

Hasegawa Kenta was a bright, cheerful young lad of twelve just dipping his toes into the wide ocean of... _girls.  
_  
*KRAK-A-THOOM!*

Luckily for him, being a Yokosuka native he'd gotten smitten with Inazuma, the two sharing a conversation at a local ice cream shop that had snowballed into regular dates at that same shop. Unlike most of the other shipgirls Kenta had run into, Inazuma was very easy to talk to, and sometimes he thought that soon they could move to... to...

He flushed crimson. Move to holding hands. A dopey smile spread over his face at the thought, though he quickly schooled it. Inazuma had invited him to her room, where she would be introducing him to her squadron leader and sisters. He could do his.

His shaking hands suggested otherwise.

The gate guard being nice calmed his nerves somewhat, but they went back full-force in the time it took him to find Inazuma's quarters. A quick knock, and the door opened to reveal a brown-haired girl with a very strong resemblance to Inazuma. This must be Ikazuchi, and the destroyer gave him an appraising look up and down that reminded him of that one substitute in fourth grade.

"You're Kenta?" she said after a moment.

"Y-Yeah."

"Ikazuchi. C'mon in."

The room inside was warm, homey, and held three other inhabitants. Two - both young girls, one with purple and one with snow-white hair - were giving him looks similar to Ikazuchi's. And then there was the older eyepatched woman sitting on a chair, loudly sharpening a large sword.

"Hello, Kenta," Tenryuu said, holding up her blade for examination. "Inazuma's getting us some refreshments, and should be back in a few minutes. In the meantime..."

The sword parked itself two inches from Kenta's nose, and he resisted the urge to scrabble back.

"Let's talk."


	458. Rule 1649

**Rule 1649. While 'beating a motherf***er with another motherf***er' has proven an effective tactic, please refrain from using your allies as blunt weapons. Required repairs are extensive and unpleasant.  
**  
Another month, another convoy to Australia. It was not a fun duty for the American shipgirls who made the run, and for once not because of enemy action or unpleasant weather. No, it was the islands they passed, tropical islands with beaches and resorts and pretty islanders to have fun with.

[My scouts aren't reporting anything.]

And the tanned Re-class battleship accompanying them that served as a constant reminder.

"Good," Hornet sighed.

[Why the long face?] Re-chan wondered.

The carrier sent a pointed glance towards the island in the distance. "I just wish we could visit those islands to relax, instead of steaming by them on the way to go kill things."

[Hmm... Tell ya what,] the Allied Abyssal decided. [When we finish off the Abyssals, I'll make sure to clear up a resort for all you girls.]

"I'd like that," Hornet replied, smiling.

The sound of distant gunfire began to drift over from the convoy, though it wasn't heavy enough to justify any panic. It did effectively grab attention, though, and only Hornet didn't turn towards the sound, instead staring longingly at another nearby island. As such she was the only one who saw the cruisers turn around the island and charge straight at them.

"Fuck! Incoming!" she shouted. Beside her, Re-chan, with the reflexes of long experience, swung around, unlimbered her guns, and fired in one smooth motion. The heavy high explosives smashed into one of the cruisers at point-blank range, throwing up a gout of smoke and gore and sending the cruiser to the bottom.

Of course, the problem was that still left another five cruisers sprinting for the carriers, and despite Re-chan destroying another and the task group's own cruisers intercepting the rest, one more was making a beeline straight for Hornet, not bothering to fire its guns.

"Well, if you're going to be so nice about it," Hornet muttered. "Sorry about this, Re-chan."

[Sorry for wha- WAUGH!]

The surprised exclamation was due to Hornet grabbing her tail and then rearing her back. "For this."

And then, once the enemy cruiser was in melee range, Hornet swung Re-chan into its face with all the horsepower she could muster. Given that she was a carrier, that was quite a bit, and Re-chan's armor only enhanced the effect.

*CRUNCH!*

Which was to smash in the cruiser's face in another gout of blood. The Abyssal staggered back, its momentum destroyed, and with a snarl Re-chan fired her available guns into her opponent, dropping it.

[Don't you _ever_ do that again,] Re-chan spat as Hornet let her go, promptly wobbling on her feet. [Ack, dizzy.]

"You might have a concussion," Hornet mused.

"Ah, you don't need to worry about that!" Enterprise chimed in from the other side of the formation. "Concussions don't have any side effects, once they heal!"

Re-chan and Hornet exchanged dubious glances. [They don't?] the former called back.

"Don't what?"

[Have any side effects.]

"What don't have any side effects?"

[Concussions!]

"What about them?"

[Gah!]


	459. Rule 1654

**Rule 1654. Museum visits needs to be cleared beforehand.  
**  
Cincinnati glanced up as the door to the destroyer dorm at Norfolk opened. "Hey, welcome back, you guys. How was the-" The light cruiser froze as she took in the glassy-eyed expressions and wobbling gait of the destroyers as the staggered in. "What the-"

Suddenly, all the destroyers scattered out of sight, the sound of retching following shortly thereafter. Cincinnati, for her part, whirled around and threw an accusatory glare at Richmond, who was standing in the doorway looking rather green herself.

"Where the hell did you take them?" Cincinnati demanded.

"The Mütter Museum up in Philly," Richmond dully answered. "Also, I'm really proud of my girls for lasting the whole way back."

"The Mütter Museum..." Cincinnati muttered, wracking her brains. "Wait... isn't that that anatomical museum? The one with-?"

"Albert Einstein's brain, yes."

"I was going to say Grover Cleveland's tumor, but that works, too."

More retching sounded out, and Cincinnati shook her head.

"Maybe you should check with Admiral Briggs before any more museum trips," she suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Richmond groaned. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go throw up my lunch."

~o~

"So," Admiral Hartmann said to the shipgirl in front of him. "One more time, tell me what happened."

"Right..." Blucher muttered. "Well, we'd planned a trip to Auschwitch. Heavy ships only; we weren't sure if the light cruisers or destroyers could handle it. When we got there, though, I immediately felt the bad vibes. _Really_ bad vibes. 'Spontaneous Abyssalfication' bad vibes."

"And no one else noticed?"

"Nope. Didn't believe me either, just said I was being paranoid. Anyway, I bowed out, and the rest went in. They came out like... well, you saw what they came out like." The heavy cruiser frowned. "How are they doing, by the way?"

"Tirpitz is being monitored at the nearest bar, Prinz Eugen is still catatonic, Bismarck's bolted for Britain, and everyone else popped in My Neighbor Totoro."

"That should do it," Blucher nodded.

"Anyway, from now on I'm having everyone sign a waver before we do any more visits to historical sights of strong negative influence," Hartmann sighed. "I'll also forward that to the rest of the Admiralty. Someone's going to have to compile a list..."

"I'll do it," Blucher volunteered. "After all, I can tell what will be dangerous."

"Done."


	460. Rule 1658

**Rule 1658. To whichever artistically inclined shipgirl who submitted a certain request, it will be deliberated upon as soon as the board recovers from their complete and utter confusion.**

Admiral Goto blinked at the email he was looking at. Then he blinked again, because the words were still not making any sense. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but when he opened them again the words were still there, taunting him.

Finally, after five minutes trying to make sense of the email, he pulled out his phone and fired off a quick text to Fubuki and Captain Yonehara.

"What the hell am I looking at?" he muttered once he was done.

Unfortunately, neither of them had any better luck.

"If this is a joke, I'm not getting it," Yonehara stated.

"Is that a video link?" Fubuki pointed out.

Indeed, at the bottom was a video link to Youtube. The video itself was two minutes of Sazanami doing some sort of bizarre dance involving a lot of stomping and three explosions.

"Somehow I'm even more confused than before..." Fubuki complained once the video ended.

"I... think it was some sort of interpretive dance?" Yonehara speculated, sounding decidedly unsure. "I think?"

"I'm honestly unsure if we should approve this," Goto contributed.

In the end, they decided to sleep on it and see if the whole presentation made any more sense.

Unfortunately, it did.

"I think this is an interpretive dance of the _war_ ," Fubuki explained, her voice flat with disbelief. "Like, this? Pretty sure this is Java Sea."

Sazanami suddenly staggered as if struck, sending a look of pure betrayal towards something she couldn't see.

"And that would be Mogami derping out and torpedoing someone again, I'm guessing. I'm seeing a fair bit of artistic license here."

"Okay... so an interpretive dance on World War II..." Goto sighed. "It's sad how that only barely cracks the top ten craziest things I've seen in this job. Is this safe to release?"

"Sir, we're confused, not gibbering madly with our brains dribbling out of our ears," Yonehara quite reasonably pointed out. "I think our girls'll be fine."

"Alright, approved, then. And may God have mercy on our souls if you're wrong."

~o~

Four days later, the shipgirls of Yokosuka streamed out of the makeshift outdoor theater that had been set up for the dance routine. All wore identical looks of confusion on their faces - with two exceptions.

"That was absolutely fascinating!" Yamato remarked. "I, Yamato, found that performance to be quite insightful!"

"You _got_ that?" Enterprise replied, surprised. "They could've been speaking Martian for all I understood them."

"I'll explain once we get home."

"Gaba!" Yoshino contributed.

Aso, meanwhile, was quiet in thought as she left. Yamato's declaration had shaken her and forced her to keep her mouth shut, which in turn had forced her to actually start _thinking_ about her beliefs. And the interpretive dance had only magnified that.

 _'They didn't just drown us in men, ships, and planes,'_ Aso thought to herself. _'They outfought us. Completely and utterly.'  
_  
Could the Japanese really be a superior race when they had been outfought so thoroughly? With one hand tied behind the Americans' back?

 _'I need to think about this.'_


	461. Rule 1661

**Rule 1661: Hornet, please stop sending B-25 Liberators to buzz Tokyo.**

USS Hornet, younger sister of Yorktown and Enterprise, stared up at the clock on the wall as it ticked inexorably to noon. Just a few more seconds, a few more seconds until her probation was up. Okay, so maybe bricking her Essex counterpart behind a brick wall was excessive, but she needed to express herself, dammit!

Finally, the clock ticked to noon, and Hornet shot up and made a beeline for a large cabinet in her room. Throwing it open, she looked longingly over the contents hanging on the hooks within.

"Don't worry, dears," she cooed. "I can finally give you all a workout..."

Being B-25s, they didn't respond, though her fairies were more enthusiastic, and Hornet loaded them onto her flight deck, resisting the urge to break out into evil cackles. This was one plan she'd been sitting on for _months_ , and now she finally had a chance to act on it! All Tokyo would know of her!

~o~

Six days later, sixteen miniature B-25s buzzed the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, ducking between the buildings to get at the pedestrians. For the most part, everyone buzzed simply stopped to take pictures and gossip about it. Was it an exercise? A prank? It definitely wasn't an attack. There was a distinct lack of explosions, machine-gun fire, and screaming.

After about fifteen minutes or so, the B-25s pulled up and flew away - just in time for a pack of Zeroes to fly overhead in obvious pursuit of the Mitchells. The incident would be talked about for days - at least, it would have, had something else not overshadowed it.

~o~

"Get back here!" Akizuki, Teruzuki, and Hatsuzuki all shouted as they chased after the B-25s that had buzzed the Admiral's office, 3.9" and Bofors guns firing as fast as their fairies could load them. The bombers merely waggled their wings at them in a clear bit of mockery, and sped up, rapidly outpacing the furious destroyers.

In his office, a steaming Admiral Goto barked one simple order to Ooyodo.

"Get me Holloway on the phone, now!"

Ten minutes later and a few hundred miles out to sea, Hornet received a text that read _"Cease and desist the B-25 Liberator raids."  
_  
"Silly admiral," Hornet remarked. "I'm using Mitchells! Oh well!" She paused, tapping her chin as a thought came to her. "Can I do that?"

~o~

A week later, Sasebo and Kure had been buzzed, Aso was panicking about "American retribution for our crimes!", and even Yamato couldn't disagree with that assessment.

"This has to stop," Hyuuga snarled. "Aso isn't the only one gripped by paranoia."

"My men have realized that if shipgirls can evade our anti-air defenses, so can Abyssals," Rear Admiral Kakizaki of Sasebo added. "Morale has _plummeted_."

"Rest assured, I am taking care of the problem," Goto stated. "It just took some time for the specialists to get here."

Right on cue, Gneisenau opened the door and entered, followed by Scharnhorst, who was lugging an unconscious Hornet on her back.

"Got her," the battleship announced, dropping the carrier onto the Admiral's desk. "Our payment?"

"Your Symphogear Blu-Rays are in the mail," Admiral Goto responded.

"Cool beans. We're gonna go say hi to U-511, okay? 'Kay." And with that, they left.

"So," Admiral Goto said. "How do you want to do the punishment? I'm open to suggestions."

Hyuuga's evil grin was exactly what the admiral was hoping for.

~o~

"I'm very disappointed in you, Hornet," Enterprise scolded her younger sister, in full "big sis lecture" mode. "It was childish, it was immature, and your situational awareness was simply _appalling_. You should have spotted the Twins and evaded them!"

"I'm sorry..." Hornet groaned from the couch she was sitting on.

"Save your sorries for Yorktown."

"Hauuuu!"


	462. Rule 1664

**Rule 1664: US shipgirls should remember that the ideal millitary officer is a-political and does not care about civil elections. Therefore, please stop commenting on, quote, "the rat race of chucklefucks who make Third Fleet look active and sane", unquote.**

"So," Enterprise said as she tapped the remote. "What's up with the election? I've been in Japan so much I've lost track."

"It's a rat race of chucklefucks who make the Third Fleet look active and sane," Hornet spat.

"Hornet!"

"Well, she's not wrong," Yorktown very reasonably pointed out. "I mean, look at the candidates. We've got Donald Trump running for re-election-"

Enterprise leaned over the side of the couch she and her sisters were sitting on, loudly retching.

"Yeah, that's what most of the country thinks. Anyway, the Democrats can't seem to come up with a candidate. The current front-runner is some defected Republican from Hawaii."

More retching.

"And then there's Wreck," Hornet picked up. "Who's actually looking the best candidate right now! This is the world we live in!"

Coming up for air, Enterprise shot a disbelieving look at her sister. "How? She's an _Abyssal_ , and not even one of the nice ones!"

Hornet opened her mouth, but the commercial that'd been playing on the TV ended, throwing up another one.

On screen was Wreck, in the suit she seemed to wear every day. This time, she was sitting at her desk, jacket off, and tinkering with her tail, which was purring contentedly.

 _"Hello again, America!"_ she said, waving. _"And I think I've figured out what this country needs! You want to know what it needs?"_ She grinned, sharklike and toothy. _"More war vets, is what it needs. When you're at war, the other guy in a foxhole, it doesn't matter what politics he follows, who he boinks, or what color his skin is. When you're at war, you get to see humanity and bureaucracy at its worst and most low and miserable. When you're at war, you see what corruption is, and what it does to you. And the good news is, in ten or twenty years or something like that, we'll have those guys in Congress and the states."_

 _"But let's not wait. Let's get started now. I assure you, I have plenty_ _of experience in war."_ Wreck fashioned her fingers into a gun, and aimed it at the camera. _"Bang."  
_  
"Stuff like that, yeah," Yorktown said to a gaping Enterprise. "A combination of 'Fuck everyone else' and 'All our best presidents have been war vets'. She's also trying to make herself as personable as possible."

"And the _memes_ ," Hornet added. "'Why choose the lesser evil?' went viral in _minutes_. And her feuding with Donald Trump on Twitter is legendary and mostly in her favor. And her Youtube channel, the videos, Jesus. Re-class battleships are badass, but Wreck blows them out of the water, often literally."

"So... basically, she's making noise and connecting herself to the two big political issues on everyone's minds?" Enterprise clarified.

"And looking like an utter snarky badass in the process, but yeah," Hornet confirmed.

"Right..."

Any further thoughts were cut off by Boston shouting as she was dragged down the hall by two cutters.

"You can't do this to me!" she shouted. "I have rights as an American to say fuck those guys to their faces!"

"Not as a member of the US military, you're not!" Hamilton snapped.

"Boston's been protesting a lot," Yorktown explained once the group was out of sight. "Protesting, and shitposting on every political board she can find. They had to take away her internet privileges to stop that."

"Ah, enough political bullshit!" Hornet said as their show came back on. "Back to punching!"


	463. Rule 1667

**Rule 1667. All shipgirls are reminded that while Kashima is a training cruiser, she is** ** _not_** **your sparring partner, PT partner, etc.**

Nagato closed the locker holding her usual clothes and stepped out into the Yokosuka base's gym. Dressed in a sports bra and athletic shorts (which, all things considered, wasn't that skimpy compared to her usual outfit), ready for her usual weekly sparring match with Tenryuu. One slight problem, though.

No Tenryuu.

Frowning, the battleship fished her phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed her number. After a few rings, the line picked up, a strained _"Hello?"_ coming over the line.

"Tenryuu," Nagato intoned. "Our sparring session is today. Where are you?"

 _"Sorry, Nagato, little busy at the moment,"_ Tenryuu replied. _"I've got a bit of an emergency- HIBIKI, YOU PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW! Sorry, you know how it is, I'm sure."  
_  
Nagato nodded, her mind flashing back to that one time Hoppo had thrown a tantrum at not being able to buy a Lego Star Destroyer set. "Yes, I do," she answered. "If I may ask, what is the... emergency? And can I help?'

 _"Sorry, but the last thing I need is another well-developed shipgirl here,"_ Tenryuu grunted. _"As for the- AKATSUKI, DON'T YOU DARE DRINK THAT! Okay, I need to go. Sorry about this."  
_  
As the call ended, Nagato wondered who she could use as a sparring partner. And oh happy day, in walked Kashima, holding a clipboard.

"Kashima," Nagato declared. "Tenryuu is dealing with a personal emergency, and cannot be my sparring partner for today." The battleship tossed the training cruiser a pair of boxing gloves. "You shall be taking her place for today."

Sloppily catching the gloves, Kashima gaped at the battleship, her clipboard falling forgotten to the ground. "Eh?! B-But I'm a training cruiser! I'm not supposed to get in fistfights with battleships!"

"It's not a fistfight, it's training," Nagato corrected.

"I don't even have any exercise clothes!" Kashima continued, blushing. "And I'm certainly not dressed for that now!"

Nagato frowned. Right. Why some shipgirls insisted on not wearing underwear was still mystifying. "I could lend you one of my spare outfits-"

"Nagato..." Kashima deadpanned. "You're twice my size. It'd be like wearing a tent."

"Ah. Perhaps Tenryuu's clothes, then? I remember her combination."

A pained grimace spread across the training cruiser's face. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"

"No."

Ten minutes later, Kashima was standing in the ring, boxing gloves on and unable to keep from picking at the long and tight t-shirt and oddly rumpled spandex shorts she was wearing.

"They do not fit?" Nagato asked.

"She's taller and skinnier than me, of course they don't quite fit," Kashima grumbled. "But at least they're not going to fall off."

"Good. Then prepare yourself."

Grimacing again, Kashima lifted a shaky, hole-filled guard - that Nagato promptly put a punch through that caught her square in the middle of her face.

"Tighten your guard!" Nagato barked. "Or you'll only keep getting hit!" To emphasize the point, the battleship landed a blow to Kashima's cheek that sent her rocking. "Now, attack!"

Taking the moment to shake the cobwebs from her head, Kashima staggered forward, a weak, wobbly punch flailing forward and missing entirely, one that left her overextended and unable to block the knee that Nagato slammed into her gut.

"Catch your breath, and we will continue," Nagato stated.

~o~

"I think I just realized that I'm gonna be dealing with four _teenagers_ ," Tenryuu grumbled as she entered the gym's locker room. After that little episode, all she wanted to do was beat on Nagato for a while. That was always therapeutic. When she got there, though, she found her locker open and the sound of boxing gloves hitting flesh coming from the gym itself. Putting two and two together, the light cruiser slapped her hand to her face and groaned.

"Goddammit, Nagato, not again," she muttered, heading into the gym.

The sight that greeted her was somehow worse than what she was expecting. She'd expected Nagato to rope in another shipgirl, most likely a light cruiser considering her missing gym outfit, but she did not expect to see Kashima slumped on the ropes, her face the approximate appearance and consistency of hamburger. More importantly, Nagato was winding up another punch.

"Oi!" Tenryuu shouted, stopping that punch in its tracks. "What the hell are you doing, Nagato?!"

The battleship turned, shooting Tenryuu a confused look. "Sparring?"

"Okay, A, that's a beating, not a spar, and two, dammit, Nagato, we've been over this!" the light cruiser replied, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You can't keep roping in random shipgirls when I'm not there to spar!"

"But she's a training cruiser, like you were," Nagato quite reasonably pointed out.

" _I_ am a badass that consistently punches above my weight class," Tenryuu countered. "Kashima is a desk jockey who only fights in emergencies. No offense, Kashima."

The training cruiser let out a pained groan that might have been a 'no problem'. Nagato looked at her, her expression inscrutable.

"I... may have made an error," she finally admitted after a few seconds.

"No shit," Tenryuu snapped. "Especially since Katori isn't a wimp like her sister."

Nagato frowned for that, only for a chill to fall on her back.

"Na-ga-to..." a voice like the devil snarled. "No bully my sister!"

As Katori laid into Nagato with her riding crop, Tenryuu leaned back against the ropes and pulled out her phone to start recording. Oh, this was going to be gold.


	464. Rule 1673

**Rule 1673. Whoever volunteers to temporarily monitor Aoba's behaviour as a partner may do so via the proper channels.**

The prison door rattled open, the warden indicating the opening. "Alright, you're free to go."

Heavy cruiser Aoba took a deep breath and stepped out, walking through the corridors of the prison until she reached the doors outside. There she paused. Would there be anyone waiting for her? Would she still be wanted out in the world? Gulping audibly, she reached out and pushed the doors open, letting the sunlight stream in.

And then she was promptly knocked over by Kinugasa.

"Sis! You're out!" she cried, tears streaming onto Aoba's shoulder. "I missed you so much! Kako and Furutaka just aren't the same!"

"Phrasing!" Aoba dimly heard Ooyodo call out.

"Can't... breathe..."

"Oh! Sorry..." Kinugasa let go of her sister, letting the heavy cruiser get her breath back. Finally, though, Aoba hugged her sister back.

"I missed you too, sis," she said softly. Breaking apart, she turned to Ooyodo. "So. What have I missed?"

"We'll tell you once we meet with Admiral Goto," she stated. "You missed quite a bit."

~o~

"Alright, let me get this straight," Aoba flatly stated. "While I've been gone, we've gotten another Allied Abyssal Installation, discovered we have a nuclear submarine in the pool, Kitakami and Kiso got superpowers, Iowa did a total 180 in personality, the Italians summoned _five_ Andrea Dorias, Yamato gave birth and then was absolutely savage to Aso, and Inazuma has a boyfriend."

"Those are the highlights, yes," Ooyodo confirmed.

Aoba was silent for a moment as she processed that. "Well, good to see Yokosuka hasn't gotten boring," she said, grinning. "But, ah, restrictions?"

"Just three," Admiral Goto confirmed. "First, you're not getting your journalistic privileges back."

"Yeah, didn't expect anything else," the heavy cruiser muttered.

"Second, you have an assignment," Goto continued, sliding a pack of documents over. Aoba took them and began skimming, her eyes quickly widening.

"This is happening?" she asked, a not of anger in her voice.

"Yeah, it's happening, and they still don't know who did it," Kinugasa replied. "It's definitely not any of the usual suspects."

"I'll get on it," Aoba promised. "Jesus, even in the old days I would have found this disgusting. And the third?"

"You're getting a minder for the foreseeable future," the admiral answered. "If a month goes by without incident, I'll revisit that."

Aoba paled as she remembered just how many shipgirls she'd pissed off with her antics. "Uh, please tell me you didn't pick Kongo or Kitakami or something."

"I'm not a fool, I picked someone who should be fairly objective," Goto replied. "Naka! Come in."

The Fleet's Idol poked her head in, and upon seeing Aoba her face lit up. "Aoba, welcome back!" she called out. "C'mon, we've got catching up to do!"

As Aoba took Naka's hand and exited the Admiral's office, she had a brief moment of hope that maybe this wouldn't be so bad. And then Naka turned a grin on her that reached her eyes in all the wrong ways.

 _"Lots_ of catching up."

~o~

Jintsuu groaned and pressed her hands against her lower back, eliciting a firestorm of crackles and pops. Thankfully, she was already at her room, but she made a note to visit the nearest spa for some work. Grasping the doorknob, she found it locked, and she sighed as she reached into her pocket for the key.

"Either Naka's streaming again, or Sendai forgot that she shares her room with us," the light cruiser muttered to herself, opening the door.

The sight that greeted her was _not_ what she was expecting, not that it was any less mentally scarring. Naka was sitting on Aoba's back (when had she gotten released from prison?), a demonic leer on her sister's face and the heavy cruiser looking distinctly parched.

"Help... me..." Aoba croaked, desperately reaching towards Jintsuu.

That seemed to jolt Naka out of whatever demonic rage she'd been in, and she quickly plastered on a shaky grin at the sight of her sister. "T-This isn't what it looks like!"

"Totally is..."

"Shut up!"

"Well, I'm not sure what's going on," Jintsuu decided. "But I'm sure Admiral Goto would love to hear this."

With a sound like a broken squeaky toy, Naka fell back and passed out.

"Thanks..." Aoba croaked.

"Probation, I'm guessing?" Jintsuu asked, getting a nod. "Alright, then. I'll talk to the Admiral about taking over for that. How does that sound?"

"Peachy..."


	465. Rule 1674

**Rule 1674. You not allowed to set up a piñata in the destroyer dorms without permission.  
**  
William D. Porter stared up at the multicolored cardboard donkey hanging from the ceiling of the destroyer dorm. So did Nicholas, and Johnston, and both Laffeys and just about every single destroyer in San Diego. All three hundred and forty-one of them, Bensons and Fletchers and Sumners. The piñata was very clearly not big enough to hold enough candy for every destroyer there, and as she looked over the crowd Willie D. could see the start of murderous avarice in their sparkling eyes and the drool dripping from their mouths.

"I'll-!" she began, raising her hand, only for Nicholas to clamp her hand over her mouth.

"Sorry, but I'd rather not get whacked in the face with a bat," she said. "I'll do it!"

As Nicholas was blindfolded, Willy D. pouted and shuffled towards the back of the crowd. She wasn't that bad! ... Some of the time... Okay, maybe, Nicholas had a point. Not to mention, from the way the destroyers were tracking Nicholas' every movement, perhaps being at ground zero wasn't the best of ideas after all.

Soon enough, her sister was blindfolded and wobbling around, baseball bat raised. Sadly, she didn't hit anyone with it, denying Willy D. of a rare point of teasing.

Of course, what actually happened was even better.

Nicholas landed a glancing blow on the piñata, cracking it open slightly, a Tootsie Roll popping out and landing on the floor. Immediately, the crowd of destroyers surged as one towards the candy, shouts of "Mine!" wafting over the rising din as the destroyers descended into punching, kicking, and biting.

"Jesus," Willie D. muttered as Livermore went flying up and through the ceiling. "Who did this?"

~o~

"What the hell?!" Northampton demanded, flailing her hands at the scene on the screen before her. "I was going for 'cute argument', not 'let loose the dogs of war'!"

[Really?] Ayase deadpanned. [They're _kids_. I know it's easy to forget that since they're shipgirls and shooting things, but... kids!]

"True..." Northampton grumbled as Charles F. Hughes suplexed Frazier into the concrete, shattering it. "Still, this is a little overblown, don't you think."

"Yup."

Ayase and Northampton whirled around to see William D. Porter sitting behind them, sipping at a Big Gulp through a straw. Loudly.

"Yo."

*SLUUUUURP*

Ayase let out a little whine of panic, but Northampton just reached under her chair and pulled out a box filled with bags of candy. "Help yourself."

"Gladly," Willie D. said, grabbing a bag of Snickers and tearing it open.


	466. Rule 1678

**Rule 1678. Cards Against Humanity is banned for any ship girl with tonnage less than that of a light cruiser.  
**  
"So! What d'you guys want to play today?" Satsuki announced to her sisters as she rummaged through the game cabinet.

"Anything but Candyland again," Nagatsuki grumped, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Aww, why not?" Fumizuki whined from across the table they were all sitting at.

"Because we play it _all the time_ , and it'd have to have been designed by Amaterasu herself to not have gotten old by now."

"We could play Scrabble," Minazuki suggested.

"Denied!" Fumizuki replied, crossing her arms in front of her. "You guys always beat me, and I'm tired of it."

"Maybe if you knew words longer than four letters you wouldn't lose so often."

"You suck!"

"Now, now, Fumi-chan, Naganaga," Minazuki cut in, trying to be conciliatory. "We'll find a game we can all agree with, okay?"

"Got it!" Satsuki crowed.

"See?" Minazuki said with a palpable sense of relief. "What'd you find, Sacchin?"

"This!" Satsuki announced, holding up a small cardboard box. "Cards Against Humanity", it declared in bold typing. "A Game for Terrible People!"

The other three destroyers of Desdiv 22 exchanged dubious looks. "But, we're not terrible people, are we?" Fumizuki pointed out.

"Let's just play it!" Satsuki snapped, opening the box and pulling out the cards. "I think it's kinda like Apples to Apples, so let's skip the rules." With that, she quickly shuffled both decks and began passing out white cards. So focused was she on dealing that she didn't notice her sisters' eyebrows crawling into their hairlines.

 _'German dungeon porn?! What is she making us play?!'_

 _'A windmill full of corpses?! Sacchin, look before you recommend next time...'_

 _'What in the heck is sideboob and how can it be tasteful?'_

"So!" Satsuki announced as she placed the decks down. "Let's get started! I hope you don't mind if I judge first, okay?"

There was no answer from her stunned and confused sisters.

"Cool beans." With that, she pulled a black card off the top of the deck. "What would you send to starving children in Afghanistan?"

Satsuki frowned. "Well, that's a morbid choice," she muttered, putting the card down and finally looking at her own hand. Her eyes widened to comical levels, she began shaking, and two chibi versions of herself popped onto her shoulder, one dressed as an angel and the other as a devil.

"Don't do it!" the angel-Satsuki pleaded. "It's terrible and awful and it's gonna make Fumizuki cry!"

"Yeah, what she said!" Devil-Satsuki agreed. "I mean, it'd be hilarious, but this is just... awful! And it's against the rules!"

Angel-Satsuki threw a disbelieving look at Devil-Satsuki. "What in God's name?! You're on my side?!"

"Don't sound _that_ surprised," the devil girl grumped. "Devils have taste and standards too, y'know."

"Yeah, well-" Angel-Satsuki began, only to whirl around when she saw something. "Shit!"

"Wha- fuck!"

Both halves of Satsuki's conscience watched in horror as Satsuki slapped the card "Dead Parents" onto the floor, jolting her sisters out of their stupors. "I win!" she declared.

The destroyer promptly wilted under the combination of Minazuki's palpable disappointment, Fumizuki's tearful quivering, and Nagatsuki's flat disapproval.

"I'm sorry!" she wailed, collapsing onto her front. "This was a bad idea!"

"What in the world is-" Nagara began as she poked her head in, but one look at the cards scattered on the floor was enough. "Oh, great."


	467. Rule 1680

**Rule 1680. Akagi is banned from participating in any form of gambling. We are tired of taking your money.**

Casino night in Yokosuka was always a hit. The girls dressed up, put in a 500-yen donation, and could hit the tables for blackjack, poker, craps, and roulette. For the most part, besuited naval personnel were manning the tables, with only one exception: a very proud Yukikaze presiding over a central poker table, there ever since she'd been banned from gambling after she'd gotten five straight Royal Flushes during the very first casino night, cleaning out eighteen shipgirls at a stroke.

It didn't take more than fifteen minutes for a mix of shipgirls and naval personnel to fill up the large conference room commandeered for the makeshift casino. Atago was popping eyes and destroying chip stacks at a craps table, Kirishima was fleecing a group of ensigns at blackjack - and then Akagi swept in, dressed in a long, modest black dress.

Almost immediately the mood changed. Where once the atmosphere had been festive and mildly raucous, now it was predatory, every eye in the room tracking the carrier. Kirishima and the Duckies, the latter of whom were at another one of the craps tables, especially got a gleam in their eyes.

"Hmm..." Akagi hummed as she scanned over the tables. Nodding, she made a beeline for Yukikaze's poker table, parking herself on a chair with her chips.

"Deal me in!" she cheerfully announced.

The other inhabitants at the table - Ryujo, Aoba, Nimu, and the recently summoned I-13 Hitomi and I-14 Iyo, the former nervously eyeing everybody and the latter nursing a small tumbler of whiskey - eyed the carrier, and a sharp-eyed observer would notice the barest quirks of a predatory grin on the former three.

Hitomi was one such observer. "Um, why're you looking all wolfy and stuff?" she whispered to Nimu as Yukikaze shuffled the deck.

"Oh, Akagi is terrible at gambling, in all forms," Nimu whispered back. "We tried to nickname her 'The Legendary Sucker', like Tsunade from Naruto, but Kaga decided that was too on-the-nose and put her foot down." The submarine winced, rubbing at her chest. "Literally. But anyway, her luck's terrible, her judgement is worse, and her poker face..."

As if on cue, Akagi picked up her cards, her face lighting up.

"Yeah, best not talk about that."

The table all immediately folded, Akagi happily sweeping up the small buy-in. Once again, the cards came around, and Akagi's face fell into a pout. Hitomi and Iyo, meanwhile, noted that each of the other shipgirls had kept the same expression: Nimu a cheerful smile, Ryujo bored examination, and Aoba contemplation. The twin submarines folded quickly, the remaining four shipgirls escalating somewhat until all five cards were out.

"Two pair, Kings high," Aoba announced.

"Damn, I only got a pair of aces," Ryujo grumbled.

"Sorry, Aoba," Nimu apologized as she spread out her cards. "Straight, ten high."

Akagi whimpered and placed down her own cards, a collection of offsuit junk that was basically a Jack high.

"Alright, time for a streak!" Nimu announced, getting heated but friendly glares in answer from Ryujo and Aoba.

And so the game proceeded. Iyo and Hitomi weren't terribly active, slowly bleeding chips in the mandatory stakes, while Ryujo, Aoba, and Nimu traded blows and Akagi's stock of chips steadily depleted itself.

Finally, it happened. A wide grin came over Akagi's face, and when it came her turn to call or raise she shoved all her chips into the pot. "All in!" she announced.

Aoba and Nimu promptly folded themselves, but Ryujo boredly drawled "Call", matching Akagi's bet without even blinking.

"Alright!" Akagi declared once the hand was complete. "I got five diamonds! That's pretty good, right?"

Aoba and Nimu gaped at the flush Akagi had somehow produced, but Ryujo only smirked. "What a coincidence," she said, placing down her own hand. It, too, was five cards of the same suit, though all spades in this case. "I got a flush, too."

As Akagi gaped, Yukikaze took the opportunity to shove the pot over to Ryujo. "And since spades beat diamonds, pot to Ryujo."

That was the carrier's cue to break down into loud wailing, Ryujo flashing a smug grin - one that promptly collapsed into terror as she spotted Kaga behind her... well, no one in Yokosuka knew what, exactly, the relationship between Kaga and Akagi was, and the first time Aoba had tried to find out had been her last.

Thankfully, Kaga merely sighed and guided Akagi to her feet. "C'mon, I told you, no more gambling," she scolded.


	468. Rule 1686

**Rule 1686. No, you are not invisible, nor can you turn invisible. We can still see you, so put some clothes on.**

One of the more underrated aspects of shipgirl doctrine was ground combat. A shipgirl was, essentially, an armored, mobile SPG battery, and more to the point, Abyssals just loved to stick destroyer-weight land versions of themselves on every island they came across. And with their heavy redundancy and built-in stealthe effects, tanks were not ideal for engaging them, especially not in the jungle-choked, heavily mountainous terrain of Southeast Asia.

Hence Desdiv 18 sneaking through a godforsaken jungle on the west coast of Borneo towards a collection of Abyssals, this one led by a pair of disarmed Ne-class heavy cruisers. Ideally, they could sneak up on them to a range where even their 5" guns could penetrate their armor, but if not, then they could hit them with the special missiles cooked up by the Yuubaris that they could fire from their torpedo tubes.

*clank* *clank* *clank*

The ideal situation, sadly, was quite thoroughly scuppered by Kagero clanking like a robot about to fall apart due to the makeshift suit of armor she was wearing. The entire ensemble was essentially a set of samurai armor, except made of random pieces of scrap steel held together by cheap rope.

[Hey, do you hear that?]

*clank* *clank* *clank*

[Yeah, sounds like armor clanking together.]

*clank* *clank* *clank*

[Shipgirls?]

[Shipgirls.]

*clank* *clank* *clank*

[Time to skedaddle, then.]

[Agreed.]

"Okay, that's it!" Kasumi snapped, whirling on Kagero. "That's the third group today that's been scared off by you!"

"Shiranui swears to God, if she doesn't get a decent fight soon..." the other Kagero of the group muttered.

"Loud..." Arare contributed.

"But without this armor, even machine-gun fire's gonna punch holes in me!" Kagero protested. "I don't wanna get holes punched in me!"

"Tough!" Kasumi fired right back. "This is a stealth mission, not a frontal assault, and the more clothes you wear the easier it's gonna be for the Abyssals to notice you!"

And now we dive into the strange of mind of Kagero. Not too deeply, of course; such a deep dive would drive even the hardiest of men mad in seconds. Still, even at the surface the logic chain is easy to follow. More clothes = less concealment, ergo less clothes = more concealment. And, of course, the logical extreme of this line of thought went something like this:

No clothes = all the concealment!

When the armor started coming off, Kagero's divisionmates, foolishly thinking she'd listened, turned away and stopped paying attention. Of course, it didn't take long for them to get impatient, especially when the sound of the armor being removed stopped.

"Kagero, what's taking so lo-" Kasumi began as she turned around, only to yelp as she spotted Kagero pulling her right shoe off, the rest of her clothing save her socks and necessary rigging attachments sitting in a heap on the forest floor. "Gah! What the hell are you doing?!"

Shiranui and Arare turned around, their eyes promptly widening to comical levels as Kagero pulled off her socks and proudly struck a pose. "I'm invisible, obviously," she said, quite proudly, as if she'd discovered some hidden secret of the universe.

"No, you're not," Shiranui groaned as she cradled her head in her hands.

"Shiranui, you handle this," a furiously blushing Kasumi muttered. "C'mon, Arare, we'll come back when the universe starts making sense again."

Sister followed sister, but Arare threw back one last comment before disappearing into the trees. "Pervert..."

"Hey!" Kagero yelped. She tried to pursue, but Shiranui grabbing one of her pigtails stopped that and also refocused her on her sister's earlier comment. "Hey, what do you mean, 'no you're not'?!"

"Do you turn invisible in the baths?" Shiranui asked, exasperated.

"... Point..." Kagero conceded. A minute passed, Shiranui placid and Kagero sullen, and then the former facepalmed again.

"Kagero, why aren't you putting your clothes on?" she groaned.

"It's hot."

Resisting the urge to groan again, Shiranui decided to bite the bullet. "Kagero, when else do people get naked besides for bathing?"

Kagero frowned in thought, then her eyes widened and she began rapidly shaking her head. "Oh, ewewewewewew!" Reaching down, she hastily began pulling on her clothes again. "Why didn't you say so?!"

"Shiranui thought it was kinda obvious..." the destroyer muttered.


	469. Rule 1694

**Rule 1694. The Mad Science "fleet" is to immediately cease all experiments involving positron weaponry.**

Phoenix had a problem. She couldn't get enough boom.

Now, that wasn't the kind of problem most people had. Even most soldiers and/or chemists. Most of both stopped well before the really high-energy exotherms, not least because they tended to involve highly unstable nitrogen and fluorine compounds. And even the Klapotke group balked at metallic hydrogen and sulfur-FOOF chemistry.

But for Phoenix, even the pinnacle of chemical reactions wasn't enough boom. Nuclear reactions were much, much better, but her superiors had quite rightly blocked access to any uranium or thorium, and even she couldn't quite puzzle out a freestanding explosive fusion reaction. There was, though, one more reaction of even higher energy density. And it was a reaction that simply required some more work with high-energy particle accelerators.

"Okay, I get that," South Dakota said, a vein pulsing on her forehead. "But... antimatter! You're messing with antimatter here! What if it starts a chain reaction that blows up the atmosphere and renders the entire planet a lifeless rock?!"

"Don't be ridiculous, I ran the numbers, and I'd need a few orders of magnitude more antimatter than I'll actually have to do that," Phoenix distractedly answered.

South Dakota pointedly eyed the massive amount of equipment around her: massive wires drawing power from distant lines, as well as Lexington, Saratoga, and the Big Five, all hooked up to a humming metal tube that stretched on over the horizon. She tried to imagine a "few orders of magnitude" more, coming up with both the global electrical grid and a hypothetical orbital solar array. "Right..."

"This is mostly a proof of concept," Phoenix continued as she worked on the guts of part of the particle accelerator. "If it works, I have ideas to miniaturize." Closing the panel, she gave it a solid thump. "Alright, back to the command van."

The two Mad Science shipgirls were soon safely inside the van, watching monitors that held various data feeds, including a satellite camera watching the business end of the particle accelerator.

"Alright, in three... two... one..."

Phoenix pressed a button, and the particle accelerator began to hum. Seconds later, a white flash leapt from the mouth of the barrel, a flash that streaked towards a distant mountain. On impact, there was a colossal explosion, one that seconds later buffeted the van and also obscured the mountain top.

Once Phoenix and South Dakota pulled themselves to their feet, they were greeted by the sight of a decapitated Mt. Whitney, shattered rock tumbling down its sides.

"Hey!" they heard California call out to them. "Did it work?"

Grinning at the poleaxed expression on Phoenix's face, the battleship cleared her throat and, in a passable imitation of Morgan Freeman, intoned, "It was in that moment that Phoenix knew she'd fucked up."

~o~

Admiral Hartmann stared down Gneisenau, tapping his pencil eraser-first on his desk. The battleship was looking anywhere but at him, and very clearly suppressing the urge to fidget.

"So," he said. "Any reason why I just got a call from NASA about a moon impact?"

Gneisenau's head dipped down, and she muttered something unintelligible.

"What was that?"

"Gravity gun..." she muttered a little louder.

Hartmann was silent for a long second. "That answer clarified nothing."

"I built a gravity gun, turned it up to max, and aimed it at a rock!" Gneisenau snapped, finally looking right at him. "Happy?!"

"No, but thank you for explaining."


	470. Rule 1697

**Rule 1697. Due to numerous complaints, practice involving musical instruments is restricted to daylight hours.**

It was a peaceful night in Yokosuka.

And then said peace was ripped apart by a cacophonous noise that sounded like a post being beaten into the ground with a banshee, sending the entire base aflutter. This sound lasted for a full minute before dying off.

Parked in one of the outdoor plazas on base, Desdiv 4 was blissfully unaware of the chaos they'd just started. Maikaze held all their attention.

"Alright, good news first: Arashi, that was some kickass guitar work," she said to her redheaded sister. "Just try not to freelance so much, at least for now, okay? You're throwing off my rhythm."

"I can work with that," Arashi nodded. There was an expectant silence as the destroyers waited for more good news. A silence that stretched on and on, becoming progressively more awkward.

"A-Anyway," Maikaze coughed after a few seconds, before jabbing a finger at Nowaki. "Nowacchi! What the hell was that?!"

"Bass?" the destroyer offered, holding up the bass guitar she was using.

"Well, yes, but that was way too mechanical!" the blonde destroyer snapped. "I can't dance to that! Bass needs at least a little bit of passion!"

"I'm with Mai-chan on this one, Nowacchi," Arashi added. "Bass needs variety."

"And as for you, Hagi-" Maikaze paused, finding the drum set to be unoccupied. "Where'd Hagi go?"

"I got this," Arashi sighed. The destroyer edged around to where they'd set up some sound equipment, reached behind a speaker and pulled Hagikaze out, who promptly wailed and clapped her hands over her eyes.

"I think Mai-chan has something to tell you," Arashi informed her.

"W-Well, uh, it's just, you were kinda all over the place," Maikaze somewhat hesitantly said. "And drums need to be steady, y'know? They're the beat I need to dance to."

"I'm sorry!" Hagikaze wailed. "B-But it's d-dark out, a-and... aaaaaahhhh!"

As the destroyer descended into fearful caterwauling, Maikaze shot an incredulous look at Arashi. "She's afraid of the dark?! But she goes on night battles just fine!"

"You haven't seen her fifteen-minute pre-battle ritual," Arashi pointed out.

"Point..."

"Why don't I take over drums?" Nowaki offered. "I think I'd do better at it anyway. She can take bass."

"That makes sense..." Maikaze muttered. "Okay, yeah, we'll do that, and we'll also start practicing during the day. How does that sound, Hagi?"

The muffled sobs cut off long enough for the destroyer to nod in Arashi's grip.

"Sounds fucking great, you guys."

Maikaze, Nowaki, and Arashi all blinked, the latter so surprised she dropped Hagikaze with a distressed "Haaauuu!" There, standing in front of them and looking quite grumpy, was Kiso, only missing her usual eyepatch and hat and dressed in blue hooded footie pajamas festooned with carrots. At their disbelieving stares, the light cruiser blushed and looked away.

"S-Shut up, I can dress however I want."

"My God that's adorable..." Nowaki deadpanned.

"No kidding..." Arashi agreed.

"L-Look, we're not here to talk about my choices in sleepwear, which aren't any of your business anyway," Kiso stammered out, blushing even more fiercely. "You guys kinda woke everyone up with your rehearsal, and-"

"Wait, what?!" Arashi and Maikaze yelped in unison, dashing back to check their equipment. After a few minutes, a wordless roar of frustration rose from the mess of wires and speakers.

"They messed up," Nowaki deadpanned.

Maikaze picked that moment to stand up and turn back to Kiso, her face haggard. "Who else is coming?" she asked.

"Well, besides me, I saw Kitakami, Naka, and Aoba out in front-"

"Right! Pack things up and then we can Moonwalk out of here!" Maikaze interrupted, grabbing their portable generator and stuffing it back in her hold. "Let's move move move!"

Nowaki, Arashi, and Hagikaze scrambled to reply, and in a burst of logistical efficiency that would have impressed an American, within five minutes the destroyers and Kiso were vacating the area. And none too soon, for as they cleared the trees right as Naka's howl of "WHERE DID THOSE THOUGHTCRIMINALS AGAINST MUSIC GO?!" wafted up from the trees.

"Way too close..." Arashi muttered.

"Agreed," Maikaze added. "Uh, Kiso, could you...?"

"Yeah, I'll cover for you guys, don't worry," the chuuniboat waved her off. "You don't mention the pajamas, I'll say you were in bed when we were all woken up, capiche?"

"Perfect!"

~o~

King George V rolled over in bed as the sound of a vertical triple expansion engine running at overload capacity undergoing acid torture wafted in through the walls. For once, she was completely jealous of her Admiral's ability to sleep through anything, one gained by very long, very hard days, and she threw a half-hearted glare at him as he snored in bed next to her.

Sadly, the caterwauling wasn't going away, and the battleship reluctantly swung out of bed and made her way to the window, opening it in order to give that stupid cruiser a-!

"OI, EDINBURGH!" Belfast's voice echoed over Scapa Flow. "IF YOU DON'T SHUT THAT THING UP I'M GOING TO SHOVE THOSE BAGPIPES SO FAR UP YOUR ARSE YOU'LL BE _SINGING_ IN TARTAN!"

The bagpipes abruptly cut out, and didn't return.

"THANK YOU!"


	471. Rule 1710

**Rule 1710: A fire drill does not require an actual fire.  
**  
Teatime. As much as Japan had fallen far behind Britain (and especially Turkey) in tea consumption, some still valued spending an hour just sipping at tea and talking. Kongo usually led the charge in this, being formerly British herself, but many of the older destroyers partook, too.

So when the fire alarm began ringing for one of many mandatory fire drills, Harukaze, Asakaze, and Kamikaze all sighed despondently at the loss of teatime. Matsukaze, meanwhile, nearly jumped out of her seat and frantically looked around, only barely avoiding spilling tea on the floor.

"W-What is that horrible noise?!" she wailed, placing her cup down to cup her hands over her ears.

"It's the morning fire drill," Asakaze informed her, the rest of the gathered Kamikaze sisters putting their cups down, too. "Ugh, so annoying."

"Annoying or not, we've got a job to do," Kamikaze announced, standing and clapping her hands. "Asakaze, Harukaze, you know the drill - pun not intended. Matsukaze, follow our lead."

The four destroyers filed out of the room, Kamikaze leading the way and Matsukaze trailing behind, heading towards the water. None of them noticed Matsukaze's thoughtful look, nor did they see her rummage into her pocket magazines and start dropping illumination rounds behind her. In fact, they were too busy chatting to notice anything out of place until Harukaze smelled smoke.

"Where is-" she began, turning around just in time to see Matsukaze drop another burning illumination round, several other beacons somewhat obscured by smoky flames further down the hall. "Ah! Matsukaze, what are you doing!"

The recently-summoned destroyer shot her sister a confused look. "I'm setting fires. Duh."

That brought Kamikaze and Asakaze to a screeching halt as well, with Harukaze throwing her arms up. "Why?!" she demanded.

"Because this is a fire drill?" Matsukaze answered, now sounding unsure.

As Asakaze loudly slapped her hand to her forehead, Kamikaze sighed and waved them along. "That's... I can't deal with this right now. Let's just get this called in and put out, before it reaches a magazine or something."

~o~

"I was kidding about the magazine thing!" Kamikaze yelped as she looked over the firefighting map, her fairies busily spraying seawater over the still-hot fire. There, not six feet from where the fire had been contained, was a full stock of naval-type Maverick missiles that no one had even known was there.

"I'm sorry!" Matsukaze wailed from further down the firefighting line.

"It is quite alright, sister," Harukaze assured the top-hatted destroyer. "All of us had trouble adjusting to the modern world. Someday soon I should tell you about Asakaze's first reaction to the Internet..."

"Hey, we agreed to never speak of that again!"


	472. Rule 1712

**Rule 1712. DO NOT touch the Peyton Manning and Pat Bowlen shrine USS Colorado and USS Denver have constructed. You may survive, but you'll wish you were dead.  
**  
"What the _fuck_ is that?!"

Oakland and San Diego followed Topeka's pointing finger to a candlelit shrine, decorated with flowers, sticks of incense, and pictures of John Elway, Peyton Manning in a Broncos jersey, and Pat Bowlen.

"Oh, that's the shrine Denver and Colorado set up after Super Bowl 50," Oakland answered, her voice tight and her mouth a thin grimace.

"And you guys haven't taken care of this... this _heresy?!"_ the Cleveland demanded.

"Oh, we tried," San Diego assured her, before closing her eyes and shuddering. "Oh, we tried..."

"Sadly, we weren't able to warn Raleigh and North Carolina off before they..." Oakland, too, shuddered and closed her eyes. "Cleveland bailed us out - she hates the Donkeyfuckers almost as much as we do - but, well, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Atlanta don't really have any beef with them."

Topeka glanced between the two AA cruisers, then back at the shrine. "What _did_ they do, exactly?" she asked. "Chinese water torture? PT up a Colorado mountain? Babysitting Taffy 3?"

"Highlights," San Diego spat. "Every Denver Broncos highlight they can find, with a focus on the ones against _our_ teams."

"I needed an hour of Khalil Mack putting a clown suit on Schofield before I was even _functional..._ " Oakland groaned.

Topeka glanced back at the shrine again, and considered the pros and cons. On the one hand, it would be hilarious to deface the shrine. On the other, at this point the Raiders were the bigger threat to her Chiefs, and she _really_ didn't want to be forced to watch Broncos highlights. Though... wait a minute.

"Wait, why didn't _Atlanta_ help those two?" she asked. "Denver clobbered them, too, in 1999."

"Yeah, but Atlanta fans were just happy to be there at all," Oakland pointed out. "She hates the Patriots a lot more."

Topeka winced at the memory. That collapse against the Colts a few years back was painful, but the Chiefs had the excuse of losing half their starting lineup, or so it felt like at the time. NFL fans _still_ ribbed on Falcons fans for their Super Bowl LI collapse.

"That makes sense." With one last glance back at the shrine, she turned on her heel and continued on the path they'd started on, Oakland and San Diego following without a word.

Barely a minute after the cruisers were out of sight, a ceiling panel fell to the floor, Denver poking her head out. "Aww..." she whined. Holding up her hand, she stroked the picture of Matthew Stafford in it. "Soon, we can have a new addition to the shrine..."

Further down the hall, another thought occurred to Topeka. "But, wait, why isn't that shrine to Brock Os-"

The cruiser immediately burst out laughing, Oakland and San Diego joining in.

"Heh, sorry, couldn't help myself," she said after a few minutes, wiping some stray tears away. "Still can't believe the Texans handed him $72 million."

"Yeah, just don't mention that to either Houston, okay?" Oakland warned.

"Don't worry, I learned that lesson after Cleveland decided to defend Brian Hoyer."


	473. Rule 1720

**Rule 1720. Shipgirls are forbidden from using teleporting or transport technology from now on. It can apparently double as summoning and result in getting two ships at the other end.  
**  
Had anyone in Scapa Flow heard the little ditty Vanguard was humming as she dialed a number into her phone, they would have immediately tackled her to the ground and started reading her notes to see what the crazy battleship was up to this time. If they had known who she was dialing, they would have skipped the tackling and gone straight to evacuating the base.

As no one actually was present to notice either, life went on as usual.

"Hey, Yuubari!" Vanguard chirped into her phone once it picked up. "I've got an idea I wanna test out, and you've got some experience in that field-"

 _"If this is about the duplicator, then I'm out,"_ the Japanese light cruiser interrupted. _"I have no desire to make more of myself - or you. Or anyone, really."  
_  
"Don't worry, this isn't about the duplicator," Vanguard hastily assured Yuubari. "I was working on a transporter-"

 _"And now I'm definitely out. The last thing we need is to be punching holes in the load-bearing walls of the universe."  
_  
"But-!" Vanguard tried, only for the line to go dead. "Oh, phooey! Well, I guess I'll just have to do it myself!"

All around Scapa, shipgirls felt a chill run up their spines, as if someone had danced a jig on their graves.

~o~

"You built a _teleporter_ ," Admiral Cunningham deadpanned.

"Yup!" Vanguard chirped. "This way, we can transport people and goods all across the world at the push of a button! It'll need some scaling work for mass movement, though."

"And this is safe?" King George V asked. "It won't give us super cancer or something?"

"I assure you, Georgie, that I spent three days doing nothing but teleporting bread, and there were no problems," Vanguard very seriously informed her.

King George V and Cunningham exchanged dubious glances, but the admiral waved her on. "Anyway, you had something to demonstrate?"

"Yup!" Stepping into the teleporter, Vanguard gave a wave. "There's one last test: actually transporting a person! It should work, but best to be sure. Anyway, the other end is set up just down the hall, so I'll be right back!" The teleporter's door smoothly slid shut, followed by a muffled "Energize!" A flash lit up the tube, and then the door slid open.

It was not empty.

Vanguard was a tall, slim blond, though not to the extent of the Iowa sisters, combining a sense of solidness and elegance that was not matched by many. The girl stepping out of the teleporter was shorter, with dark brown hair and even more solidly built. As well, their Vanguard wore a modern ensemble somewhat resembling a flight attendant's uniform, while the girl in front of them wore an outfit hearkening back to the Georgian days, a combination of ball dress and officer's uniform. The girl, despite her confusion, took one look at Admiral Collingwood and straightened into a salute.

"Admiral, sir!" she barked. "HMS Vanguard, third of the St. Vincent class, reporting!" That done, she relaxed and looked around in confusion. "Uh, so, how did I get here? And where is here?"

"It worked!" Vanguard cut in as she dashed back into the room. As King George V and Cunningham were still stunned into immobility, her triumph quickly turned into confusion. "Okay, I was expecting a bit more of a reaction..." Her eyes landed on Vanguard, and the two shipgirls stared at each other.

Admiral Cunningham took the opportunity to give his verdict. "Well, as great as this invention is, I don't think we'll be able to afford it."

Vanguard whirled around, her finger raised and mouth open for a blistering tirade, then she paused, thought about it, and slumped over. "Yeah, okay..." she whimpered.

"Still have no idea what's going on!" Vanguard added.

Screams suddenly sounded out from outside, and all four inhabitants scrambled to the window. There, floating over Scapa Flow and crackling with purple lightning, was a beast somewhat resembling a giant squid.

"What the fuck," Vanguard deadpanned.

Then someone opened up with heavy AA and Bofors, rapidly shredding the squid-thing, though it's dying scream sent everyone reeling.

"Oh, so that's what Yuubari meant by 'knocking holes in the load-bearing walls of the universe'..." Vanguard muttered, rubbing her temples.

"Yes, definitely shut down," Admiral Cunningham nodded.


	474. Rule 1725

**Rule 1725. Bribing fairies with cookies to get extra work done, add illegal modifications to your gear, or give you equipment you can't even use is forbidden.**

Most days, the mess staff, aided by the various food supply shipgirls, were well able to keep up with shipgirl appetites. Today was not one of those days. A surge in operations had sucked most of the staff into regular mealtimes, leaving an overworked Mamiya to handle the day's desserts.

As she stacked one more berry tart atop a whole stack of them, Mamiya let out a tired sigh and eyed the mounds of flour, sugar, butter, peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chips that she still needed to turn into cookies.

"No rest for the weary..." she muttered, climbing to her aching feet to begin mixing and baking. Said feet promptly seized up, and a fairy popped up in front of her nose, looking tired, annoyed, and 120% done with this shit.

"Desu desu _desu!"_ the fairy snapped, glaring Mamiya right in the eyes.

Sighing, Mamiya indicated the stack of cookie ingredients. "If I reserve a batch for you guys, will you let me actually do my work?"

Humming, the fairy tapped its little chin before answer. "Desu!"

Mamiya felt her legs come unstuck, and she sighed and began preparing the ingredients. "At least it's just sugar cookies..." she muttered.

Forty-five minutes later, Mamiya placed a trayful of cookies on the counter, taking the remaining trays to scrape off into their proper containers. Fairies popped into existence on her shoulders, hopping down onto the counter. Ever fifth fairy was decked out in fire gear, and it was these fairies that climbed onto the hot tray and began carrying the cookies, which were about as big as themselves, over to the waiting fairies.

And so it was that as Mamiya loaded more cookies into the oven, a steady stream of fresh ones were delivered to her fairies, broken up, and consumed.

~o~

"I'm bored..." USS Chicago, Baltimore edition, groaned as she trailed behind Iowa and Missouri in the little surface action group assembled. "Bored!"

Glancing at the back of Iowa's rigging, she noticed a spigot of some kind protruding from the back of her superstructure rigging. Frowning, she accelerated to pull up next to the battleship. "What's with the spigot on your turret?"

"Oh, that?" Iowa answered, glancing over at the device. "That links directly to the still I had my fairies install in a storage compartment I didn't need." Leaning over, she whispered conspiratorially, "You could totally get one, too, if you bribe 'em with cookies."

A thoughtful look passed over Chicago's face, and she fell back, pulling out a flask and holding it up to the spigot, which she turned. Golden liquid, reeking of ethanol, poured out into the flask, and Chicago hastily shut the spigot and took a swig. The moonshine hit her throat like an ornery mule, burning and kicking before splashing into her stomach, her boilers quickly taking advantage of the extra fuel source.

"Nice," Chicago said. "I'll definitely have to look into this."

"Look into what?"

Chicago flinched and looked behind her to find Missouri looming above and looking 120% done with this shit.

"Crap."

~o~

"I'm an idiot."

That was what Kiyoshimo said as several of Yuubari's spare fairies devoured a stack of chocolate chip cookies. And she felt quite justified in that opinion. After all, the solution to becoming a battleship had been staring her in the face the whole time: Yuubari's fairies! They knew everything she knew, and those kooky light cruisers had done crazier things! After that, it had simply been a matter of finding the right bribe, and Mamiya's big baking session the other day had provided the perfect one.

"So," she said as the fairies finished up the cookie frenzy. "D'you guys think you can turn me into a battleship?"

The fairies glanced at each other, and then one stepped forward. "Desu?"

Grinning, Kiyoshimo pulled out a box of Pocky.

The fairy's eyes widened, and it went in a huddle with three others. After a few minutes of hurried whispers, the huddle broke and the fairy from earlier nodded vigorously, accompanied by a "Desu!" of triumph.

"Great!" Kiyoshimo chirped. "How are we gonna- WAGH!"

That startled yelp was due to the fairies knocking down her legs and carting her off into a spare machine shop. For the next two hours, the sounds of drills, shrieking metal, and muffled screams wafted out of the room. At the end of those two hours, Kiyoshimo staggered out, loaded down two comically oversized twin 12" turrets strapped to her arms, as well as patches of armor over her torso.

"Dammit!" she howled - and then she fell flat on her face.


	475. Rule 1727

**Rule 1727. There are no "fiction-writing computer genies beyond the fourth wall" that grant wishes. Please stop trying to find them.**

[Ah, director?]

The red-haired woman in question looked up from the object of her current research - namely, to see whether pneumatic dynamite guns might be a worthwhile addition to the Abyssal forces - to send a quizzical look at her Northern Ocean Princess assistant. "Yes? What is it?"

[Why are you doing all... this?] the young Abyssal asked, indicating the equipment scattered around their somewhat new base. [I mean, we're all grateful that you're giving us this chance to strike back at humanity, but... why?]

For a long moment, the director was silent, and then she sighed and pulled up the goggles she wore.

"Because I know the truth," she said, sounding melancholy. "Free will doesn't exist. We're all puppets, dancing on strings to the boy with the typewriter." Her usual manic grin came back, only ten times crazier. "But now that I know the truth, the strings are weakened! I shall play this role, yes, and then... then I will pierce the veil of reality, find that boy with the typewriter, and _chop off his fingers so he can never bother us again!"  
_  
Yeah, good luck with that.

The Northern Ocean Princess flinched at the sudden disembodied voice, while the Director smiled even wider.

"I'm coming for you, you bastard," she said into the air.

Like I said: good fucking luck with that.

"Wait, that's a scene transition coming up, isn't it? Don't you dare cut away-!"

~o~

Leaving behind the crazy red-haired lady, we return to Yokosuka, where Aso is intently studying her computer monitor and... looking frantically around?

Well. This is an interesting development.

The carrier continued to glance around, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"Who are you?!" Aso demanded. "Show yourself!"

Whoever it was did not oblige, leaving Aso looking rather stupid as she stared at and yelled at a random patch of wall.

"Hey!"

Now confused and angry, the carrier decided to try and find Kongo and talk to her. Maybe the kooky battleship knew something about this.

"Yeah, maybe I should talk to- DAMMIT, DON'T PUT THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD, YOU STUPID AMERICAN!"

Whatever gave you the idea I was American?

"That's English I'm hearing, and that's definitely an American accent!" Aso snapped back.

Heh. I thought you hated America, and yet you know enough English to discern specific accents.

"Know thy enemy," Aso snarled, before wilting. "And... I've been thinking about things..."

Silence descended on the room, broken 2.56 seconds later by Kongo throwing the door open.

"Aso-chan!" she cheerfully called out. "Who are talking to- oh, it's you."

I'm wounded by that. Everything I did for you, and you're not happy to see me? I mean, come on, I gave you Admiral Goto and made you the memetic badass of the Japanese fleet! What more do you want?

"You never show me and Goto demonstrating our BURNING LOVE!" Kongo whined. "And I'm not whining, shut up!"

Nigh-omnipotent I may be, but I have rules I need to follow, and showing you two fucking like rabbits every time you get it on is a _big_ goddamn no-no!

"... Really?"

Really. Also, don't sound so surprised. Some of the stuff you two get up to would be blatantly illegal if it was in anyplace other than the bedroom.

Kongo flushed crimson, and Aso took the opportunity to voice her own opinions of all this. "What the hell is going on?!"

Great. Kongo, mind taking care of this? I have plans for her, and none of them involve medium awareness.

"Consider it done!" the battleship chirped. She promptly pulled a frozen, twelve-foot bluefin tuna out of her hold, brandishing it like a sword. "Now, hold still."

Aso, naturally, immediately scrambled back, not that it did her any good. Bang-bang went the frozen tuna, and while Aso wasn't dead, her newfound medium awareness was.

"Really? The Beatles?" Kongo snarked as she stowed the tuna away. "Can you get any more cliche?"

Everyone's a critic... anyway, as payment, I have removed Goto's pants and turned his boxers into assless leather chaps for the rest of the day. Enjoy!

"Thanks!" Kongo chirped, before flouncing off. And that, I think, is where we should end this.


	476. Rule 1732

**Rule 1732. Whoever stole the Canadian Frigate/Destroyers collection of "The Littlest Hobo" DVDs are to return them,** ** _immediately_** **.**

"Check it out," USS Wiltsie declared, sweeping her arm over the absolutely _massive_ DVD cabinets promintently displayed in the lounge she'd taken over. "The greatest DVD collection on the planet! Including the original versions of the original trilogy of Star Wars!"

Wickes raised her hand. "What's wrong with the Special Editions?"

Suddenly, the Gearing was looming over her, eyes promising death. _"Heresy,"_ she snarled.

"Duly noted," a completely unperturbed Wickes deadpanned. "So, do you have _The Three Stoo-_ "

"Where did you get this?!"

Wickes and Wiltsie glanced over to the cabinet, where Williams had pulled out two DVD boxes. Each read _The Littlest Hobo_ on the top.

"Swiped 'em the last time I was in Halifax," Wiltsie answered, missing Wickes' soundless squawk of panic. "Why?"

Williams' response was to toss the DVDs at Wiltsie, who awkwardly caught them, before grabbing all of the DVD cabinets and stuffing them in her hold. "Joestar family secret technique!" she shouted, before bolting out the door.

"Wait for me!" Wickes shouted as she followed her half-sister out.

That left a stunned Wiltsie standing there, holding two boxes of DVDs and an expression of utter befuddlement on her face. "What was that all about..." she muttered, turning around - and coming face to face with HMCS Haida's impassive face. "Gah!"

When her yelp provoked no reaction, Wiltsie took the moment to catch her breath before jabbing Haida right on the breastbone. "Fuuuuck you, dickbag," she spat, turning around again. This time, the sight of Canadians - the twin Athabaskans, in this case - didn't provoke more than a flinch. Wiltsie still grabbed their cheeks, once again getting no reaction.

"Weird," she muttered, before starting as she realized that she was completely surrounded by Canadian Tribals. "Uh-oh."

*FWOOSH*

The Gearing glanced behind herself at Haida, who was now holding a lit match in front of a spray can.

"Oh, this is gonna _suck_ ," Wiltsie groaned.

She was promptly tackled to the ground, and that's when the screaming started.

Outside, Williams and Wickes pressed their ears to the door, listening to both Wiltsie's screams and the unholy violence the Canadians were unleashing on her.

"We should probably at least _try_ to help," Williams stated.

"Yup."

Suddenly, the violence came to a halt. After a long moment of silence, Wiltsie's voice drifted through the thin wood again.

"W-What are you doing with that? No... no! Stay away! Stay awa- YAAAAAAAARGH!"

"But we're not gonna do that."

"Nope."


	477. Rule 1736

**Rule 1736. Sending Sendai to northern Norway in Summer and telling her to enjoy the night there was just mean.**

Ooyodo scowled as she looked over the most recent reports on Sendai. That shipgirl like night battles _entirely_ too much, and when her sisters started to get worried...

But what to do? She couldn't exactly _stop_ Sendai from doing this. Restricting her to base was both too obvious and sidelined one of their best night surface fighters. Sending her to another base also wouldn't work; too many people. Scapa was the only exception, and a furious King George V had already had her permanently barred from that anchorage.

Sighing, Ooyodo set aside the report and moved on to the next in her stack. Maybe it would help trigger an idea.

As it turned out, it did. The next item on the agenda was a thinly-veiled plea from the Germans and Russians for someone to help them train up their destroyers in surface combat. Inexperience on the both ends, compounded by some embarrassing defeats during the war on the German side, had apparently led to some... interesting debacles. One eyebrow tried to climb up into her hairline as she read about them. Seriously, how do you do that with a _crab?  
_  
Still, this gave her an idea. They could spare Sendai for a few weeks, it was summer, and the letter had suggested that they were running the training in Norway. Very far north in Norway. A low chuckle escaped her lips as she marked the report as a priority. Let that stupid light cruiser try to indulge her obsession with night battles in a place with no night at all.

~o~

"Hello, Sendai. Welcome to Tromsø."

Sendai looked around the city. It was a very pretty city, but it was ten in the evening and the sun was still sitting in the sky. "Enjoy the night here. Right. Thanks, Ooyodo..." she muttered under her breath.

Then she glanced down to her greeter and _hello mama_. She hadn't gotten a good look before, but Baku was a _damn_ fine specimen. Tall and mature for a destroyer, with that lean runner's build, long, silky dark hair, and an aura of stern professionalism that Sendai _loved_ to break down.

Noticing she was drooling, Sendai hastily wiped it away and composed herself. Control, control, don't jump her bones before asking.

"Glad to be here," she said, shaking the destroyer leader's hand and then pointing up at the sun. "So, is it always like this?"

"Only during the summers," Baku answered. "Follow me. And mind the college students."

 _That_ got Sendai's attention. "College students?" she parroted, trying not to sound too eager.

"Yes, we have a very large university here," Baku answered, sounding proud. "Most of them have gone home for the summer, but there's always several thousand who stay, whether for research or other needs."

As she followed Baku, Sendai let a grin spread across her face. College students were perfect for her needs. Young, horny, and open to experimentation. The only problem...

Once again, Sendai glared up at the sun. How was she supposed to do night battles if there wasn't any night?! "Well played, Ooyodo..." she muttered.

Though...

 _'I'm looking at this the wrong way!'_ the light cruiser realized. _'It's not that there's no night, it's that the night lasts all day!'  
_  
Grinning, Sendai continued to follow Baku, a new spring in her step and plans shooting through her mind. This was going to be fun!

~o~

"Welcome back, Sendai," Ooyodo said a few weeks later, her eyebrow twitching. "Good job. I'm guessing you had fun in Norway?"

"Yup!" a bowlegged Sendai chirped before wincing and grabbing her groin area. "Ow, maybe a little too much fun."

Another twitch. "So I gathered." The reports from the Germans and Russians had been enlightening, particularly Bismarck's blistering blowup. Tirpitz's had been a little... too enlightening. "Anyway, you're back on rotation with the destroyer divisions tomorrow, so I recommend some rest." Her eyes pointedly landed on Sendai's groin. "And maybe some ice."

"Got it..." Sendai groaned as she waddled off.


	478. Rule 1741

**Rule 1741. From now on if some of the younger ship girls want to go off base, make sure there is at least one way to contact you or find you and at least one of you is considered responsible enough to watch over things.**

Admiral Holloway looked over the four destroyer shipgirls sitting in front of him, all four recently plucked from a high-rise - and thoroughly trashed - Las Vegas penthouse hotel room. Abner Read was slumped over, her head in her hands, and liberally coated in chicken feathers and petroleum jelly. Bush was sprawled out in her chair, utterly exhausted, her clothes sporting several tears from animal claws. Ammen was wincing at the light even through her sunglasses, and yet kept angling herself to catch more sun with her skin. There was certainly no shortage of it, considering the swimsuit she was wearing. And finally, Mullany was simply arrogantly sprawled in her chair, gold rings and necklaces decorating her fingers and neck, and a bulging duffel bag full of Benjamins sitting next to her.

"So," he said. "I take it you all enjoyed Las Vegas?"

"Yup!" Mullany chirped, her sisters all groaning.

"Oh, I shouldn't have suplexed that space shuttle..." Bush added, her limbs spasming.

"Actually, DARPA's quite happy about that," Holloway said. "Something about 'billion-dollar project gone right' and 'practical energy weapons'. I didn't quite catch it all."

"Yay me..." Bush intoned, throwing up a quivering thumbs-up.

"Of course, the city of Las Vegas is considerably less happy. And they know about the sheep's bladder."

"Knew that was a bad idea..."

"The city of Las Vegas also frowns on religious rituals." The Admiral frowned at the report he was looking at. "Or, whatever it was you were doing, Ammen."

"The clouds and rain were hiding the sun," the destroyer intoned. "They had to go."

"Right... Anyway, Mullany, I'm afraid you've been banned from every casino in the city."

The destroyer glanced pointedly at the bag of cash she had. "Oh no, whatever shall I do," she deadpanned.

"And Abner..." He sighed as the destroyer looked up, her expression haunted. "Go get some sleep. I'll have a counselor talk to you later. And I'll make sure to sic Atlanta on those bastards."

Nodding, the destroyer stood and staggered out, dead-eyed. It did not escape Holloway that all three of her sisters suddenly looked ashamed.

"I'm glad to see you grasp how much trouble you're in," Holloway said in his best 'stern father' voice. "I'll be compiling a summary of how many problems Abner Read ran into trying to corral you three. I'm sure that'll be enlightening. Anyway, for now, you'll be confined to base, and I'll be modifying the rules so that something like this doesn't happen again. Dismissed!"

Ammen and Mullany helped Bush to her feet and began to leave, but the middle girl threw a pleading glance at the admiral before they did so.

"You can keep the money, Mullany," Holloway said. "You earned it."

Nodding, the destroyer grabbed the bag and, still supporting her sister, left the room. That done, Holloway sighed and relaxed before pulling out his notebook and scribbling down an idea.

"Wright!" he called out a few minutes later. "I want a list of all the shipgirls on base responsible enough to lead a Vegas field trip!"

"Aye, sir," his secretary replied. "And I have the perfect test."

~o~

The steak was perfect. Prime-grade beef off of grass-fed cows, grilled to medium rare in brandy and a cast-iron skillet with pepper and salt, topped with crispy garlic chips and herb butter. It smelled divine, and arcane devices built by Phoenix kept it perfectly warm.

And the trapdoor installed in front of it was getting a workout.

"Yow!" Boise yelped as said trap door opened up beneath her, sending her tumbling down the slide installed. Hidden in the bushes, Wright ticked off another name. A few minutes later, Louisiana walked by, boyfriend in hand, and both took one look at the steak and turned on their heels. Nodding, Wright checked off another name.

All according to plan.


	479. Rule 1745

**Rule 1745. After the incident with USS Manta, beekeeping is not allowed.  
**  
It is often said that soldiers marching through captured territory (and regrettably, often friendly territory, too) will steal anything not nailed down. Booty was a good way to leave the war rich, and often the only means of supply available. On the other hand, sticking around too long was a good way to eat a cavalry sabre to the skull. As an aside, that was one reason the humble potato led to a European population boom: soldiers would rarely bother digging up a potato field, leaving a peasant family a means to eat while they got another grain harvest going. They'd be hungry, but they'd live.

Anyway, most American submarines, free from the evolutionary pressure of cavalry sabres to the skull, took things a step further: steal everything that wasn't nailed down, then steal anything that was nailed down, then pry the nails out and steal those, too.

Hence USS Manta creeping through the grass on her stomach, making her way to the wooden boxes the light cruiser Fargo kept on a bit of green land on base. No one was entirely sure what was in those boxes, and Manta was determined to be the first to find out.

Soon, she reached the outermost box, and pulled out a miniature crowbar. She quickly pried the nails out of the foundation, and lifted up the box. And it was then that Manta found out what was in those innocuous wooden boxes.

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"

Yeah, those. Big, fat, hairy, yellow-and-black honeybees that were quite put out at the sub girl ripping their home from its foundations. They descended on her in a massive swarm, stinging whenever they got the chance, and her flailing arms did little to dissuade or stop them. As the stings mounted, the sub felt her throat closing up, nausea slammed into her like detonating depth charge, and her vision blurred and began to wobble. The last thing she saw before she collapsed unconscious was Fargo in some odd suit running up to her.

~o~

"Well..." Medusa stated. "Now we know shipgirls can have allergies."

Admiral Holloway pointedly looked at Manta's unmoving form, swaddled from head to toe in bandages and special cream, an IV stuck in her arm and a respirator keeping the oxygen flowing. Had she not sustained so much surface damage, she'd have been in the repair docks long before now. "Great. I just wish we hadn't found out like this."

"You and me both..."

"I'm so, so sorry, admiral," Fargo miserably said, her head bowed. "I'll get rid of my bees, I..." A sob tore its way out of her throat, and the cruiser took a moment to compose herself. "I can't let anything like this happen again."

"I agree," Admiral Holloway stated, before turning a kindly smile on Fargo and ruffling her hair. "But you just need to get your bees off the base. You don't need to kill them."

"And I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that your wife has nearly killed people to get fresh, natural honey," Medusa drawled.

Holloway flushed, and coughed into his fist. "Yes... nothing at all..."

Sniffing, Fargo wiped her eyes. "Yes, sir!"

 _Five Minutes Later:  
_  
"Oy..." Fargo groaned as she took in the sight of her bee farm. An even half-dozen submarines were writhing under a veritable cloud of bees, another half-dozen hives broken and vandalized. As she returned to the hut where she kept her bee suit and smoke generator, she considered that this would have led her to moving her bees, even without Manta's example.


	480. Rule 1747

**Rule 1747. Yes, the United States has a submarine named Kraken. No, she is not some tentacled sea monster. It is wrong to tell anyone otherwise./Rule 1748. Kraken, we don't care how you got them or how you managed to keep them alive this long, return the giant squid to the sea. And the colossal squid while you're at it.  
**  
Iku crawled up out of the water and onto the pier into San Diego, settling behind a stack of crates as some chatting destroyers passed by. Reaching into her swimsuit, she pulled out a laminated map, before tossing it away in disgust.

"Dammit, Hachi, your maps are terrible," she grumbled.

Glancing around, she spotted a lone destroyer about to walk past her, and jumped out, grabbing her by the mouth and waist and dragging her into the nearest alleyway.

"Knock it off!" Iku hissed as the destroyer thrashed and screamed through her hand. "Answer my questions, and I'll let you go."

The destroyer paused in her struggling, Iku relaxed her grip a bit - and then a booted heel slammed into her foot, followed by an elbow to the nose when she recoiled in pain, and finally William D. Porter slammed her into the wall of the alley, her fingers wrapped around the submarine's throat.

"I really don't appreciate being kidnapped," she said to an increasingly blue Iku.

"Uncle... uncle!"

Frowning, Willie D. let Iku go, and the submarine collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. "Now, before I haul you off to one of Coasties, I'm going to give you a chance to convince me to let you do... whatever it is you wanted to do."

"I just... wanted to ask... where... the sub dorm... is..." Iku wheezed.

"Uh huh..." Willie D. said, eyebrow raised. "And I'm supposed to believe that you have no nefarious plans?"

"Wisconsin said that if I bothered any of the surface ships again she'd break my boobies like Kongo did!" Iku yelped, protectively wrapping her arms around her voluminous breasts.

It did not escape Willy D. that that left the submarines open to the lewdmarine's shenanigans, but to her surprise found she didn't care.

"Head back into the water and go south past the bridge," she said. "It's a big concrete pen, you can't miss it. And if anyone asks, I never met you."

"Noted..." Iku groaned through her bruised throat.

~o~

As it turned out, the Fletcher was right: she couldn't miss the submarine pen. Though the description of "concrete pen" was woefully inadequate.

Such a description brought to mind Soviet Brutalist architecture, bland, boring concrete boxes with no character whatsoever. The garishly decorated building liberally festooned with extensions, awnings, murals, and banners was not bland, boring, or lacking in character in the slightest. And underwater, it was even more impressive. There weren't many seabeds that were artfully decorated in shells and glass stones in the shape of a snarling torpedo. Still, Iku wasn't there to admire the admittedly impressive architecture. Slipping through one of the underwater entrances, she pulled out another laminated map, this one far more detailed and of the interior of the pen. And, circled in permanent marker, was USS Kraken's room.

"Ah~" Iku breathed, clutching one cheek as blood rushed to her face and... other places. "Glorious tentacle love..." Shaking her head, she refocused on getting to the room she wanted. "Alright, a left turn down that way..."

It didn't take her long to reach Kraken's room, and she ran into no other American submarines on the way. To her disappointment, the room was decidedly standard. And her disappointment only intensified when she saw the pictures of Kraken sitting on her desk - the very shipgirl - emphasis on girl - Kraken.

"I suppose it was too much to hope for..." she sighed, before noticing a small, very dark water tank built into the floor. "Hello, what's this?"

A glance at a sign bolted to the base of the tank showed a very blatant "KEEP OUT", as well as a pack of tentacles reaching out to snare a hapless stick figure.

"Jackpot~!" Iku chirped, running up and jumping into the tank, sinking into its depths.

For about five minutes, the room was still. Then the door opened, admitting USS Kraken, who looked entirely ordinary, as far as subgirls went, save for her orange-pink hair, a shade unusual even for shipgirls, fashioned to look like a pair of squid tentacles. Behind her she was wheeling a large tank packed with live squid, cuttlefish, and sardines.

"Feeding time!" she chirped, dumping the creatures into the tank and waiting. When, after several minutes, there was no response, Kraken leaned over the tank lip, a quizzical look on her face.

She was just in time to catch the top of Iku's head to her nose. Staggering back, Kraken took in the sight of the Japanese sub desperately clinging to the glass, blood oozing out from a hundred minor cuts and from under the tentacles wrapped around her, and her face was a mask of existential terror.

"HELP!" she howled, before being dragged under again.

Kraken blinked, then grit her teeth and dove into the tank. "You idiot!"

~o~

"You... were keeping Humboldt squid... in a tank..." Admiral Holloway ground out.

Kraken poked her fingers together, nervously shuffling on her feet. "... Yes?"

A sigh, and a pinch to the brows. "Please tell me you don't also have a giant squid or colossal squid."

The submarine froze, and then looked away, whistling "innocently".

"Goddammit, Kraken..." Holloway groaned, cradling his head in his hands.

Before Kraken could dig herself any deeper, Medusa walked out of the repair docks, her clothing and hands stained with blood.

"Ah, it's nice to deal with _normal_ injuries for once," she said. "If you can call getting half her skin flayed off 'normal'. That that's true is a sad testament to the times we live in. You'd better get rid of those Humboldts, Kraken, they're way too agressive and those barbed suckers are _nasty._ "

With Medusa's pointed words, and Holloway's even _more_ pointed glare, Kraken slumped forward in defeat. "Yeah, okay." She began to shuffle away, but paused as something occurred to her. "Oh, can I at least keep Fluffy and Cthulhu?"

"I say yes, Admiral," Medusa said before Holloway could wonder which two squids those were. "From what I can tell, the colossal and giant squid stayed away."

"Alright, alright, fine!" Holloway snapped, throwing his hands in the air. "And you have my permission to say 'Release the kraken!' when you let go of the Humboldts."

"Yay!" Kraken chirped, prancing away. Once she was out of sight, Holloway turned to Medusa.

"So, what in the world motivated Iku to climb into Kraken's squid tank?" he wondered.

"Apparently, she thought Kraken was some sort of tentacle monster." She grimaced. "You know, of the Urotsukidoji variety."

Holloway's mouth creaked open, a sound like a goose being strangled underwater coming out.

"I had a similar, if less operatic, reaction," Medusa replied, shaking her head. "Really, what was that lewdmarine thinking?"


	481. Rule 1755

**Rule 1755: Super glue doesn't just** ** _come off_** **. Don't put it places you'll regret.**

All four of the Iowa sisters had... _reputations_. New Jersey was the foul-mouthed, wise-cracking momboat; Missouri was the stickler for the rules; Iowa had remained a voracious flirt in both her incarnations; and Wisconsin was a total geek, San Diego's resident shipgirl computer expert and head of a half-dozen super-geeky clubs. And while Midway remained the greater weeaboo, Wisconsin's superior Western sci-fi knowledge kept her as the resident expert for novice cosplayers. Most of the time, this merely took the form of advice and revision of costume plans.

Most of the time.

"What in the world did you use on this costume?" the battleship wondered as she tried and failed to pry the very faithful reproduction of Fine's Nehushtan armor from Senki Zesshou Symphogear off of Alaska's breasts. Behind her, her sisters Hawaii and Guam - dressed much more sensibly as a female Goku and Papika from Flip Flappers - watched anxiously. Several more tugs yielded nothing more than a squeal of pain from the large cruiser. "Did you use superglue or something?"

Alaska's sudden nervousness and loss of blood in the face was all the answer Wisconsin needed, and she sighed and stood to retrieve some glue remover.

"Let this be a lesson about using superglue to hold costumes to sensitive parts," the battleship lectured as she pressed Alaska down on a nearby workbench, glue remover in hand. "By which I mean, don't. This is going to hurt. A lot."

The drops burned as they fell on Alaska's breasts, the large cruiser gritting her teeth. More drops, and more burning, followed relentlessly and Wisconsin worked the remover into the glue.

"I'll email you a link to a website that sells strong, body-safe glues," the battleship said conversationally even as she continued to remove the superglue.

The grinding of Alaska's teeth intensified into howls of pain as the removal got higher, and it was only after ten excruciating minutes that the costume came off. Immediately, Guam was there with a borrowed sweatshirt, covering her sister's modesty.

"T-Thanks..." Alaska grit out. And with that, the Alaska sisters walked out, the eldest protectively hugging her raw, sensitive chest.

Watching them go, Wisconsin then sat at her computer and typed out the email she'd promised, on a whim changing the sender to "all". Hopefully that would stop a repeat incident.

~o~

An ocean away, in Izmir, Turkey, HMAS Stuart had to do something she wished she'd never have to do.

"Guys, we need to give the Mona Lisa back to the Frogs," she informed her four destroyers. "I'm afraid we've run out of excuses, and they're threatening to sic Dunkerque on us."

"That's bullshit!" Vampire snapped, slamming her hands on the table. "We've gotta have an excuse left! What about Averoff filling the base with pillars again?"

"Used that two months ago when Richelieu sent that demand," Voyager informed her.

"Oh... W-Well, what about getting a new frame?!"

"Bretagne had a new shipped to us. It arrived two weeks ago," Waterhen said helpfully.

"Uh... Abyssal pressure?"

"The British swept the seas around Crete nine days ago and everyone knows it," Vendetta countered.

Vampire worked her jaw for a few seconds more before slumping over, defeated. "Alright, fine. We'll give the stupid Frogs their painting back."

"Thank you!" Stuart sighed, standing and walking out of the room. A few minutes passed, in silence aside from some muffled cursing that started to drift into the room about a minute in. Then Stuart poked her head in. "Okay, which one of you little rugrats superglued the damn frame to the wall?!"

Instantly, all four of the Scrap Iron Flotilla pointed their fingers at each other. And amazingly, nobody doubled up.

"Oh, I'm going to get _such_ hell from Yavuz over this..." the destroyer leader groaned, hand meeting face.


	482. Rule 1761

**Rule 1761: To all Allied Abyssals, while we understand you are having trouble adjusting to society, please make sure what you eat is, in fact, a meat animal. The Puppy Incident will not be allowed to happen again.**

San Diego's annual shipgirl cookout was always a popular event. White Plains and Texas, the latter hauling herself up from Galveston, took charge of the cooking, recruiting a great many shipgirls and accepting gifts of food, mostly meat, from anyone who would offer it. And that often led to some... odd culinary choices, particularly the previous year. That was when Hawaii, Miami, and Helena had shown up with fifty pounds of breadfruit, a fifteen-foot alligator, and a live buffalo, respectively. Still, a good time was had by all, and everyone thought the new foods were quite tasty.

This year, the big change was that several Allied Abyssals were coming to the cookout. Nii-chan, Ayase, a couple of defected Wos, and, of course, Wreck.

[Gotta get off the campaign trail for a bit, y'know?] the primordial Re-class explained. [It's _exhausting_ , it's like being shot at 24/7. And the _money_ , fucking Christ. Always more money. Money for ads, money for banners, for travel, money money money money money money...]

[Wo...] the Wo-class carrier she'd been talking to nodded.

[You get it,] Wreck said, clapping the other Abyssal on the shoulder. [I'm gonna go get more pork shoulder. Thanks for listening.]

Wreck had just gotten her meat - as well as a solid half-pound of burnt ends she'd cajoled Texas into giving her - when she noticed a commotion erupting at the edge of the crowd. Frowning, she began moving that direction, weaving around curious shipgirls and then shoving through a stunned crowd.

What she found was Ayase looming over a Ne-class heavy cruiser carrying a... dead... puppy...

What?

[I don't care that you made sure it didn't have an owner!]

Oh, right, Ayase was still yelling.

[You still killed a puppy!] the Light Cruiser Demon snapped, sounding more pissed off than Wreck had ever heard her. [That's...] Visibly reigning herself in, Ayase pinched the bridge of her nose. [Look. Normal people find puppies cute and cuddly, and absolutely _not_ to be killed for no good reason.]

[But I had a good reason!] the Abyssal heavy cruiser protested. [It's a barbecue, right?] She lifted up the carcass. [I wanted to contribute.]

Dead. Fucking. Silence. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, even the sizzle of the grills seemed to have killed itself in shame rather than contemplate that idea any more.

 _[I'm honestly unsure whether this is worse than Aso's brand of craziness...]_ Wreck thought.

[NO!] Ayase howled.

[WE'RE NOT EATING A DOGGY!] Nii-chan contributed.

"KEEP THAT DAMN THING OFF MY GRILL!" Texas shouted protectively.

That set off a general din as _everyone_ registered their complaints about eating a _dog_. A dog! That just... wasn't done! Wreck, for her part, could only stand back and watch in stunned fascination. The heavy cruiser, for her part, was frantically glancing back and forth before slumping to her knees.

[Shit... this is one of those human things again, isn't it...] she sobbed. [I'm sorry! Just... tell me what I did wrong!]

And that was Wreck's cue. [Dog's are man's best friend, okay?] she explained, kneeling down next to her. [And you don't eat your best friend, unless the circumstances are _really_ dire.]

Sniffling, the heavy cruiser looked up at her with watery eyes. [Like running out of ice cream?]

[More dire than that,] Wreck replied, her kindly smile becoming notably brittle. [Just... it's a bad idea period, okay?]

[Okay...]

"Well, if you're not going to have that, can I?"

All eyes locked onto Ning Hai, who had appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the dead dog, and was now examining it.

"Healthy, lean, but good meat on its bones..." she finished. "Yup, good eating. Any objections?"

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see Wreck looming over her.

[You're making me agree with _Aso_ ,] the Abyssal growled. [That is _not_ a safe place to be.]

Ning Hai blinked, then threw the dog carcass in the air, transformed into her dragon form, and swallowed it in one gulp. "There, you happy now?" she rumbled.

Wreck's eyebrow twitched. [No, but I don't think I'll get any better. Now get out.]

"Fine..." Ning Hai grumbled, rolling her eyes and then taking flight.

For a moment, all was silent as everyone watched the dragon take flight. And then one of White Plains' burgers caught fire, her helpers scrambled to put it out, and everyone went back to moving. All except a mixed group of light carriers and light cruisers.

"So," Monterey said. "What's this about Aso?"

"I mean, that was either the, like, lamest insult of all time, or, like, savage beyond compare," Pasadena elaborated. "So, like, which is it?"

Wreck grinned. Like most of her grins, it was toothy and not very nice. [I was in Kure the other day, and boy oh boy, the things that carrier was saying...]


	483. Rule 1766

**Rule 1766. Exorcisms must be performed by a professional. You girls may not hire yourselves out to deal with evil spirits.**

Unryu and Ryuujo stared at the twenty-meter squid-things floating through the air in a vast cloud above them, crackling with purple lightning and sending the construction workers around them to the ground, clutching their bleeding ears and screaming. More continued to fly out of a rift in the air that looked for all the world like a mottled black and purple bruise in the fabric of reality. The kamaitachi that they'd been pursuing also stared up at the rift, his eyes wide in soundless terror.

"So..." Unryu began. "Do you know what this is?"

"I have no fucking idea," Ryuujo answered, which was worrying, since the light carrier had been doing this for three years now and, everyone had thought, had seen everything there was to see in the exorcism business. In Japan, at least.

The kamaitachi picked that moment to glare daggers at them, as he'd been doing the entire pursuit. "Fools!" he hissed. "These are voidspawn! You've just doomed all of reality to collapse!"

" _We've_ doomed all of reality to collapse?!" Ryuujo snapped. "You're the one who cut that seal in the first place!"

The kamaitachi flinched back as if struck. "Yeah, well, that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't dodged!"

"Yeah, sure, I should've just stood there and took it," Ryuujo grumbled. " _That_ makes sense..."

"While watching you two bicker is interesting," Unryu cut in. "I believe we should focus on solving the problem in front of us."

Ryuujo and the kamaitachi both looked up at the ever-increasing cloud of voidspawn, some of whom were now drifting towards the nearest town.

"Yeah, I'm out," the sickle weasel decided after a moment of thought. "Have fun closing this, ya shipsluts! Ta-ta!" And with that, he jumped into the trees and was gone.

"Right, didn't know what I was expecting," Ryuujo sighed. "Okay. I think I can get that rift closed, and the JASDF is going to notice and contain this sooner rather than later. Keep them off me?"

Unryu's response was to whip out the scroll she carried at all times and brandish her staff, her serene smile not moving in the slightest.

Ryuujo matched that with an eager grin of her own. "Right. Let's do this!"

~o~

Four hours later found the two carriers being debriefed from the repair baths.

"Well," a tired-looking Admiral Goto began. "That was almost a disaster, and that was _before_ I had my ear chewed off for fifteen minutes by the Kanto Magic Association. From what they told me, you two are lucky to be alive."

"I feel it..." Ryuujo groaned. "So, did they...?"

"The rift is closed up, and the voidspawn are dead," Goto replied. "Your attempt to close the rift did help, by the way, despite the, and I quote, 'most ham-fisted collapse spell I've ever seen'. I was also informed that had you two bothered to _call this in_ , they could have had far more experienced exorcists on hand and gotten this cleaned up faster. So no more freelance exorcism until further notice, okay?"

"I hurt to much to argue..." Ryuujo groaned, Unryu concurring with a bout of bubbles.

An indulgent smile crept over Goto's face despite his best attempts to suppress it. "In that case, we'll pick this up again once you two have recovered."


	484. Rule 1768

**Rule 1768. You may not own or acquire pieces of your former hulls for any reason.**

"Aw, broccoli!" Iowa spat in a surprisingly adorable manner as several heavy shells blew the roof off of one of her turrets. "Do you have any idea how long that'll take to fix?!"

"Less complaining, more fighting, sis!" New Jersey snapped.

"Right!"

Despite 1/6 less incoming fire, the Abyssals couldn't long stand up to two pissed-off Iowas, and after the one that had blown Iowa's turret up was sent to the bottom, they began to retreat. Iowa and New Jersey, exhausted and with their destroyers' torpedoes expended, didn't pursue.

While New Jersey herded their escorts, Iowa pondered how to get her turret fixed, and thus back on the front lines, faster than the usual repair time. Sadly, examination of her turret confirmed that it had been fucked harder than Sendai after her recent trip to Tromsø, though the barbette just needed a bit of patching. The obvious solution was to just plunk a new turret down in the barbette, but San Diego didn't exactly have a store of 16" turrets lying around that she could requisition.

As the small task group turned to rejoin the larger fleet, Iowa's face was now scrunched up in a thoughtful pout, which caused all sorts of changes in bloodflow among the other shipgirls when they got back. They had just gotten underway back to San Diego when a confident smirk replaced it.

"I~de~a~!"

~o~

The next morning, the sun broke over the city of Los Angeles, and as it did so, a great cry rose up from the waterfront of San Pedro.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

The reason for this echoing expletive was that the first of the museum ship's volunteers had arrived at the mighty vessel only to find the #3 turret missing entirely, leaving the barbette open to the air. No search was conducted; after all, everyone knew where the only people who could make off with a 1700-ton metal structure were, and a call was placed to San Diego.

90 miles to the south, Iowa was quite pleased with herself for her good idea, and the other battleships were curious.

"So, how _did_ you get your turret fixed so fast?" North Carolina asked.

"Yeah, we're not exactly swimmin' in the things," Alabama contributed.

"That's a se~cret~!" Iowa chirped, to a chorus of groans.

Massachusetts opened her mouth to respond, only for her eyes to widen as she spotted something behind Iowa. "Actually, I think we're about to find out."

Iowa blinked, and looked behind herself, immediately flinching back from Wisconsin's thunderous expression.

"We need to talk," her younger sister grit out.

"You do know that it's still mine, ri-?"

Iowa's retort was promptly cut off by said turret swinging around and smacking her in the face with its guns. Rearing back, it did it again. And again. And then again.

Finally, Iowa reached up and caught the guns on her hand, though the turret continued to strain against her palm, and the red marks on her face were thoroughly obvious. As were the snickers coming from the other fast battleships.

"Right," the battleship grunted. "Changed my mind, they can have it back."

"Good," Wisconsin nodded. "Wouldn't want you to end up like Oriskany."

Silence.

"What... happened to Oriskany?" Indiana nervously asked.

"She took a piece of her hull," Wisconsin informed the assembled battleships. "She is currently cursed to talk in nothing but farts and duck quacks."

Another silence.

"Alright, can we please get this turret off of me, then?" Iowa demanded with more than a little desperation.


	485. Rule 1770

**Rule 1770. We didn't want to say it, but we have to. If there is a sign that says "Do Not Touch", don't touch it!**

Destroyer USS Mayo had a satisfied smile to her face as she made her way into the engineering department. She was helping! In ways that didn't involve shooting things! Not that shooting things wasn't fun, but it was nice to be doing other things. Right now, for instance, she was carrying a stack of approved forms for delivery to Phoenix.

Poking her head into the light cruiser's laboratory, she found that Phoenix wasn't there. What _was_ there was a beaker, sealed shut with soldered metal and heavily braced to the workbench it was on. A sign on it read "Do Not Touch".

Naturally, Mayo had to touch it. She placed her papers down on a nearby workbench, carefully avoiding several wet oil stains, and then walked over and gave the beaker a firm jab with her finger. All that bracing meant it would stay still, right?

*KA-BOOM!*

The resulting explosion rocked the base and sent a flood of shipgirls to the lab. Phoenix arrived first, poking her head into her surprisingly still-intact lab. Of course, intact though it was, the interior was a scene of carnage. Everything not nailed down had been knocked over or shredded by glass and metal shards, the bench her experiment had been on had been neatly obliterated, and a patch of slight-darker soot on the floor in the shape of a pair of sneakers indicated that some fool had been in here.

The hole in the wall she'd overlooked in her haste to get in the lab was another clue.

Stepping back into the hallway, Phoenix beheld another hole in the far wall, and stepped through it. The chain of holes moved through several rooms before she came to find a destroyer embedded in the wall, covered in soot and missing her shoes. She squinted; that looked kinda like Mayo.

"This is why I put that don't touch sign up," she admonished, getting a pained whimper in response.

~o~

Jeanne d'Arc winced as the humidity of Provence's lab hit her like a physical force. It was hot, and wet, and it _stank_ of feathers and bird poop.

"All the more reason to get this shut down," she muttered, picking her way around the avian-filled cages and tropical plants. One particular bird caught her eye: the size of a large turkey, it was decidedly plump and decorated in pink feathers, with a short beak, curled up on the floor chained to a post. A sign reading "Do Not Touch" sat in front of it.

Smiling, Jeanne d'Arc reached down and began to stroke her fingers through the feathers on the bird's head. Shuddering under the touch, the bird cracked open an eye - an eye that betrayed considerable intelligence. A growl sounded out from the bird's breast, and it snapped at Jeanne's fingers, prompting her to yelp and hop back as the bird stood. As she'd thought, it was about the size of a large turkey; the pointed teeth, clawed wings, and _massive_ raised claw on each foot were more panic-worthy.

"Merde..." the training cruiser breathed, and then the raptor was on her.

About five minutes later, Provence, whistling happily, opened the door to her lab, finding the raptor sitting on Jeanne d'Arc's back, large claws digging into her back as it gnawed at her skull. The training cruiser's blood was spilling in an increasingly large puddle beneath her from the many cuts on her unarmored hull.

"Oh great... Bad Petey!" the battleship snapped, the raptor flinching. "Now, get off of her!"

Head bowed, the raptor crawled off of Jeanne, who let out a pained whimper.

"What's wrong with you?!" Provence demanded, going for her first-aid kit. "Read the sign! Do Not Touch! Jesus fucking Christ..."

~o~

HMS Venerable took a deep breath, and steeled herself. She'd heard about Graf Zeppelin - everyone had - and knew, knew that her scary reputation wasn't as bad as everyone said it was! Besides, she was always happy to spread the word of the good lords Angled Deck and Steam Catapult.

A knock on the door quickly brought a grumpy-looking Graf up to her.

"Hi, Graf!" Venerable chirped. "I'm HMS Venerable, I'd like to talk to you about our good lords Angled Deck and Steam Catapult." To emphasize her point, she held up a pair of pamphlets on what both systems allowed.

For a moment, Graf looked skeptical, and then a light smile crept across her face. "Come on in," she said, turning around and sweeping her arm around the sitting area. "I'll be back with some water. Make yourself at home. Just, whatever you do..." At this, the carrier's expression grew dark, and she pointed at a door prominently signed with "Do Not Open". "Don't open that closet." And with that, she was gone.

Naturally, Venerable couldn't resist a straight invitation like that, though to her credit she held off for several seconds, her mind conjuring up increasingly elaborate and frightful reasons for why Graf wouldn't want her to open that closet. Finally, though, her hand grasped the knob, turned-

And the door swung open immediately, three desiccated bodies Venerable recognized as Eagle, Furious, and Indomitable collapsing in front of her accompanied by a flood of coffee beans. Three pairs of eyes, more dead than alive, swung to her, and Indomitable reached up for her, a dry raspy "Heeeeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeee..." forcing its way out of her throat.

Gape-mouthed and horrified, Venerable took a nervous step back, only to freeze as a hand clamped on her shoulder.

"Now why'd you have to go and do that..." the voice of the devil herself lamented, cold steel glinting in Venerable's peripheral vision.


	486. Rule 1779

**Rule 1779: Being a Shipgirl doesn't make it safe to play on thin ice. In fact, if we have to fish you out of a lake, the repair costs will be deducted from your allowance.  
**  
"Are you sure this is safe?"

HMS Curlew rolled her eyes. That was the problem with these new destroyer girls: so big and strong they thought they could talk back to cruisers! No other destroyers did that! Well, the Tribals did, but they were basically light cruisers anyway, so that wasn't a problem. Anyway, this back-talk was ruining her plans of sliding along on an iced-over pond outside of the city of Portsmouth and showing off her superior stability.

"It's perfectly safe," she said, annoyed. To demonstrate, she slammed her boot on the ice of the pond they were standing next to, the ice holding with nary a creak. "See?"

Barfleur, Trafalgar, Camperdown, Hogue, and Lagos all exchanged dubious glances. "But that's right near the shore," the dusky-skinned Lagos pointed out. "Isn't it gonna get thinner further out?"

"Well, then, what do you think we should do?" Curlew snapped.

"I say we go back to our snowball fight," Camperdown proposed.

That drew a shudder from Curlew. No way; those destroyers were way too accurate with their snowballs, and they liked to gang up on her. "Denied, we've been doing that for the last hour," is what she actually said. That was greeted by a chorus of "awwwww"s from the destroyers, but frankly, Curlew didn't care. "Now come on, onto the ice!"

The destroyers didn't move, and Curlew barely suppressed a scream of frustration.

"Fine!" she snapped. "I'll show all you babies that it's safe!"

And with that, the light cruiser stomped out towards the center of the ice, the destroyers watching from the reeds. Naturally, about a third of the way out, the ice gave way without any warning, dunking Curlew into the icy pond with a startled yelp. The destroyers didn't react, waiting expectantly for her to grab the edge of the ice.

Instead, they got a flash of light, then nothing.

"Was that her rigging?" Barfleur wondered.

"Wait, how deep is this pond?" Hogue added.

Silence stretched on, all five destroyers coming to a chilling (pun intended) realization.

"Shit, she ain't coming up!" Trafalgar yelped.

Camperdown and Hogue, meanwhile, had to grab hold of Lagos as she tried to move onto the ice herself. "Not a good idea, sis!" Hogue shouted.

"Well, someone needs to save her!" Lagos countered.

"I'll go get a submarine!" Barfleur announced.

"DID SOMEONE SAY _SUBMARINE?!"  
_  
The five Battles whirled around to find Upholder standing on a snowy hill above them.

"Where did she-"

"VERILY, I WAS GOING FOR A VIGOROUS WALK FROM THE NAVAL BASE!" the submarine announced. "AND THEN HARK, I HEARD A MAIDEN'S-"

"JUST SHUT UP AND GO RESCUE CURLEW ALREADY!" Trafalgar interrupted.

"Ah, right!" With that, Upholder launched herself into the air, taking a swan dive into the pond. Shortly after she splashed down there was a dull thud, and then seconds after she surfaced, a waterlogged, rigging-deployed Curlew in her arms.

"That pond was shallower than I thought," Upholder grumbled as she stalked out of the water, rubbing the top of her head. "Anyway, she swallowed a lot of water. How should we-"

In a clearly practiced move, Lagos grabbed Curlew and dropped her on the ground, Hogue slammed her foot on her diaphragm, sending water spewing into the air, and then Barfleur dropped a star shell down her gullet. There were a few seconds of nothing, and then Curlew shot up into a sitting position, coughing out smoke and chunks of phosphorous.

"Well, she'll need a look from the repair guys, but she's not dying anytime soon," Camperdown announced.

Upholder, meanwhile, was watching the scene with more than a little apprehension. "How in the world did you girls develop this?" she asked. "And how did you get so good at it?"

All five Battles shared a defeated sigh. "Battleaxe and her sisters," Barfleur answered. "You would not believe the shit they get up to."


	487. Rule 1780

**Rule 1780. "I never asked for this" isn't a way to describe your refit/upgrade, even if something was changed to your dissatisfaction.**

HMS Fiji opened her eyes, blinking away the last vestiges of the drugs that had knocked her out for her refit. HMS Resource swam into view, nodding as she looked Fiji over.

"It went well, then?" the cruiser croaked.

"It did," Resource answered, handing over a cup of water. "New, heavier AA outfit of Bofors and Oerlikons, and a full radar suite. Though, we, ah, had to make a... subtraction."

Downing the water in one gulp, Fiji crumpled up the cup and tossed it away. "Meh. After what happened with Chokai I'm not sorry to see those torpedoes go. And I remember my sisters complaining constantly about those Walrus aircraft." She frowned at the look on Resource's face. "What did you do, Resource?"

In lieu of answering, the repair ship wheeled over a mirror. "Please don't be mad," she said, wincing.

Fiji glanced at her reflection, and at her rigging, still attached from the refit - and more importantly, at the conspicuous absence of one of her 6" turrets.

"My guns!" she wailed, collapsing onto her face and sobbing.

Resource shuffled awkwardly on her feet for several seconds, Fiji still sobbing, and then walked over to her bed and began patting her on the back. "There there?"

That brought the sobbing to an end, but it also prompted Fiji to give Resource a blistering - if still tear-stained - glare. "I never asked for this," she intoned.

That, at least, Resource knew how to react to, and so verily did she smack Fiji upside the head.

"Ow! What was that for?!" the cruiser yelped.

"How many cruisers were sunk by surface combat in the war?" Resource asked.

"Uh... 8?"

"And how many to air attack?"

"11. Including me," Fiji sullenly replied.

"So here's how it's gonna go." Suddenly, Resource pulled Fiji in close, snarling in her face. "You've lost that turret, and you're gonna _like it_. Got it?"

"Got it," Fiji squeaked.

Resource grinned. "Glad we had this talk. And don't worry too much about the loss of surface firepower, the greater accuracy from your radar should be able to compensate. Now-"

At that moment, the door slammed open, Frobisher stalking in. "Resource! You gave me 6" guns instead of my 7.5"! I never asked for this!"

As the repair ship began slamming her head against the nearest wall, Fiji came to a realization. "How many times have you heard that today?"

"Way too many..."


	488. Rule 1782

**Rule 1782. The Frozen Dessert Eating Contests are to stop immediately. We can't sortie out destroyers, subs, escort carriers, or ANY ONE that is suffering from headaches due to the inevitable** **bridge-freezes** **.**

Norfolk had many advantages as a naval base. Its location in the Hampton Roads area meant that it was close to the vital Newport News shipyards, and guarded the mouth to the strategic Chesapeake Bay. The urbanization of the area, both in Norfolk proper and nearby Virginia Beach, helped keep the sailors and shipgirls occupied. And it was roughly equidistant from both ends of the Eastern Seaboard.

Sadly, decent weather was not among those virtues. Winters were tolerable, though the locals tended to panic at the slightest inch of snow, but summers were blazing hot and incredibly humid. Air conditioning helped. So did chilled food and drink. Add in a great deal of boredom in between ASW patrols and convoy work, and the usual love destroyers had for ice cream, and you get-

"IT'S TIME TO BEGIN THE FIRST ANNUAL FROZEN DESSERT EATING CONTEST!"

Yeah, that.

Just about every off-duty destroyer and destroyer escort in Norfolk was gathered at long tables outside on one of the lawns, a spoon and large bowl in front of each. Technicians stood off to the side, keeping a baleful eye on the army of freezers deployed to keep the ice cream cool. And up on a podium stood Wasp.

"Alright, most of you know the rules already, but for the benefit of the walkons, I'll explain 'em again," the carrier said, to a chorus of groans and boos. "Oh, shut up. I know most of you know the rules already, but we have walkons, as I said, and I know for a fact that a lot of you are _terrible_ listeners. Or do I need to bring up the last year's pie-eating fiasco?"

As one, the DDs and DEs shuddered.

"Didn't think so. Alright, your goal, obviously, is to eat as much ice cream as possible. We'll be keeping a running tally of how many scoops you eat, and whoever's eaten the most once we're done wins. If you stop eating ice cream for thirty seconds, you're disqualified. You are _also_ not allowed to interfere with any of your fellow destroyers."

The response to that last provision was immediate and loud.

"OH, COME ON!"

"YOU'VE RUINED IT!"

"THIS IS BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT!"

Wasp let the voices wash over her for several seconds, then took a deep breath. **"SHUT UP YOU LITTLE BRATS!"** she shouted into the microphone.

Once the noise died down, she continued. "I've got three words for you all: pie. Eating. Fiasco."

The anger, which had been about to crest again, deflated.

"Good. You can all listen," Wasp continued, before suddenly grinning. "Oh, by the way: begin."

Ice cream plopped into the bowls, catching the DDs and DEs off guard. Some recovered quickly and began devouring the cold treat; the rest proceeded more slowly, whether deliberately or through sudden panic. It wasn't long before the dropouts began, shipgirls falling off the benches clutching their heads and wailing about brain freeze.

The remainder pressed on, more and more of their number falling, until they were reduced to a mere thirteen.

And then everyone still functional heard the whistle of an incoming shell.

"Holy shit!" Wasp yelped, diving for cover. And not a moment too soon, because a 12" HE shell landed and obliterated her speaking area milliseconds later. Surging to her feet, Wasp eyed Hampton Roads, where she could just barely make out the scraggly mop of black hair distinctive to Ma-class submarines. Well. The _multiple_ scraggly mops.

"Base under attack!" the carrier barked, drawing her bow and loading up some Avengers. "Destroyers, get cra-"

It then occurred to her that most of Norfolk's DDs and DEs were currently nursing debilitating cases of brain freeze.

"Oh, fuck me."

~o~

Admiral Briggs was not a happy man. And he was unhappy about a great many things. He was unhappy with the Chair Force and the intelligence pukes for utterly missing this attack. He was unhappy with the Abyssals for carrying it out in the first place. And he was unhappy with Ensign Tuck, because now he had to explain to an unhappy family that their son had died by strapping two wrist-mounted knives to his forearms, screaming something about "Master" and "going all out" before diving into the thick of the Abyssals with predictable results.

But most of all he was unhappy with Wasp, which on some level he knew was unfair. After all, she couldn't have known that the Abyssals would pick this exact hour to attack. Or that they'd have absolutely no warning. She'd also taken out half the Abyssals all on her lonesome. Still, because of her, most of his destroyers and destroyer escorts had been incapacitated for most of the attack. And from the looks of it, she knew that she'd screwed up, if her downcast gaze and fidgeting was anything to go by.

"Alright, I've decided," he said. "First: no more eating contests."

That got an easy nod.

"Second: you're on training duty with the new escort carriers for the next month."

A wince, but also a nod.

"And third: no air conditioning for that month, either."

"You fiend!" Wasp declared, jabbing a finger at him.


	489. Rule 1788

**Rule 1788. The Submarine shipgirls are to stop selling tickets for "Epic submarine battles".**

"What did you say?"

It was not often that Shipwreck Cove, an underwater bar located in the wreck of a ship in the Bay of Biscay, went completely silent. Given most of the clientele were German U-boats, and that they'd all just heard U-47 descend into depths of frigid rage that she usually reserved for newbuilds who tried to mess with her maples, this silence, while unusual, was nonetheless unsurprising.

"You heard me," USS Harder smirked, ignoring I-168 "Imuya" frantically shaking her head behind her. "You went after sheep. That's nothing to be proud of. Have you seen sheep? They're slow, and stupid as fuck. Kinda like merchantmen. Sheepdogs, though, those're mean and stubborn." Her smirk widened. "Kinda like destroyers. Stay on easy-mode all you like; I'll just take that submarine crown, thank you very much."

"WRETCH!" HMS Upholder jumped in. "HOW DARE YOU INSULT-!"

"How dare I?!" Harder interrupted, her smirk at epic proportions. "Oh, I dare! I really dare! Upholder, your mother was a Scot and your father wore pantyhose!"

The silence that stretched on was only broken by a drawn-out "Oooooh snap!" from one of the British boats in the bar.

Finally, though, Upholder spoke up, her voice quivering with rage. "U-47, if you desire to punish this wench for her insults, I would be happy to be your second."

"Done," U-47 snarled. "Alright, Harder. You and me, submarine duel. Bring your slide rule."

"Oh, excellent," Harder crowed, rubbing her hands together. "Fifty miles west of the Lizard? Oh, and Imuya, you're my second."

"Still better than being a wingman for Iku," the Japanese submarine muttered, before blinking as something occurred to her. "Wait a minute..."

~o~

"So, let me get this straight," O'Bannon said as she did the usual bartender thing of cleaning glasses. "You want to sell tickets to this 'epic submarine battle' between U-47 and Harder."

"Yes," Imuya answered.

Nodding, O'Bannon said, "You do know all anyone's gonna see is water, right?"

"Yes."

Grinning, O'Bannon stowed the glass and reached out a hand. "Imuya, darling, I think this is the start of a wonderful partnership."

"Thank you," the Japanese submarine said as she grasped and shook O'Bannon's hand. "And don't call me darling."

~o~

As plans go, it was pretty simple. They'd chartered a boat, the owner all too happy to take their money for a milk run a bit out into the Atlantic, and then started advertising. "Glorious submarine battle!", their ads announced. In addition to print flyers, they'd also put out hints on the internet that several blogs, newspapers, and forums had been all too eager to run with.

When the day came, they needed to hire another boat.

In all, over 1000 people showed up to watch the submarine battle, some of whom had flown in to other countries. At fifty pounds a ticket, even counting the boat expenses both O'Bannon and Imuya had made off with quite a bit of money.

It took the viewers fifteen minutes of watching open ocean to realize they'd been conned. They immediately ordered the boats back, ready to tear a new one out of the bartender that had sold them the load of horseshit in the first place.

"Why, that slant-eyed Jap traitor!" O'Bannon railed when said viewers showed up at her bar angry and demanding compensation. "She made off with all the proceeds! And she conned you out of your money?!" Grabbing her bar's phone, she began dialing. "I'm going to make damn sure that submarine doesn't get out of the Channel!"

The crowd, mollified, trailed out, the last leaving just as the phone picked up. "We're clear," O'Bannon said into the receiver, a smile creeping onto her face.


	490. Rule 1791

**Rule 1791. Practical jokers are to stop adding red fabric dye to Seadragon's (SS-194) laundry. She was called the red submarine for sailing in her red undercoating, but only because the bomb that sank her sister Sealion (SS-195) alongside her scorched her own hull and blistered her black paint off. She doesn't appreciate the reminder.**

One of the changes made to all major navy bases with the arrival of shipgirls was the addition of personal-sized laundry rooms. Shipgirls had far more individualized clothing than sailors, and many objected - strenuously - to simply tossing it all together in one big washer. And after seeing some of that clothing, the Admiralty had agreed.

San Diego's was, of course, the biggest, big enough that it was easy to find hidden corners while you waited. And so it was that two submarines, Seadragon and Balao, found themselves in one of these corners, lugging large hampers full of clothes. Each eyed what the other was wearing: Seadragon in a long and rather ratty T-shirt, Balao in her usual bikini.

"Laundry day," they said in unison, nodding at each other. With that, they chose their washers and began loading their clothes in. Seadragon finished loading her clothes first, and Balao had just finished when she heard a shout of surprise and anger.

"Motherfuckers!"

"What is it?" Balao asked, turning around to see Seadragon glaring at her bottle of detergent.

"Some little rugrat swapped my detergent for red dye again!" she snapped. "That's it! Once I'm done with this, I'm finding whoever did this and making an example of them! I do _not_ need those memories dredged up!"

"What memories-" Balao began, only to remember her readings on what happened at Cavite. "Oh. Right. Well, good luck with that."

Seadragon stomped out, leaving Balao to finish loading her own machine, and it didn't take long for the former to return and finish loading. The two submarines were largely quiet while the loads went through, fiddling through their phones and occasionally laughing at something funny. Finally, though, Balao's machine beeped, and she got up to pull out her clothes.

This time, it was Seadragon who was caught by surprise by an angry outburst.

"Motherfuckers!"

Seadragon placed her phone down and stood up to take a look. "What's wro- oh."

"'Oh' is right!" Balao snapped as she held up a pink T-shirt that had obviously been white in a previous life. "I'm sick and tired of people bringing up that stupid movie! Gah!"

"Tell you what," Seadragon said as she retrieved her clothes for drying. "You can come along when I find the pranksters and destroy them. How does that sound?"

"Sounds _great."_

~o~

USS Hazelwood gaped in mute astonishment at the sight of her sisters McCord and Trathen giggling over bottles of pink and red dye. Heermann, beside her, simply slapped her hand to her face.

"You guys swapped out Seadragon's and Balao's detergent, didn't you," she groaned. "You _idiots_. C'mon, Hazelwood, let's get out of her before the fish come back for revenge."

"Ah, c'mon, Heermann," Trathen dismissively replied. "You did the same prank and you got away with it."

Heermann stopped, then threw her best "You're a fucking idiot" glare over her shoulder. "One, I was the first one to do it, and I haven't done it since," she pointed out. "Two, I timed it so they still had some clean clothes to wear. And three, I'm better at you than this." And with that done, she stomped out.

Hazelwood, for her part, merely looked disapproving. "There is a point at which you should have stopped and you have clearly passed it," she declared, before spinning on her heel. "I'm out."

"Aw, c'mon, you wimps!" McCord called after them. "What's the worst they could do?!"

Neither universe nor submarines could resist a straight line like that, and something flew in from the window, landing between the two destroyers. It promptly burst, spraying the both with a green, sticky, and foul-smelling goo.

"AUGH! IT'S LIKE SATAN TOOK A STEAMING DUMP IN MY NOSTRILS!"

Okay, so perhaps 'foul-smelling' understated things a tad.

"I'VE SMELLED DURIANS BETTER THAN THIS STUFF! WHAT THE FUCK IS IT?!"

Okay, maybe understated things a lot.

"Eurgh..." McCord groaned, trying to wipe some of the gunk off of her face. "I think it's Alabama's bug repellent."

"No wonder the bugs are repelled, then," Trathen muttered, before pulling her shirt over her head. "C'mon, let's go wash this shit off."

McCord followed her sisters lead, and as soon as their clothes were off both destroyers scampered for the shower. So focused were they on getting rid of the gunk that they missed two silent stalkers moving into and through their room.

"Thank God that stuff washes out," Trathen stated several minutes later as she walked out of their bathroom, wrapped up in a towel.

"Agreed," McCord stated, making a beeline for their wardrobes while her longer-haired sister went for the hairbrush. "Motherfuck!"

"What is it?" Trathen asked.

"All our clothes are gone!"

"WHAT?!" the destroyer yelped, rushing over to the wardrobe, too. Sure enough, the drawers were conspicuously empty. All except for one outfit.

"I am not wearing that," Trathen immediately declared.

"Sis, it's this or nothing," McCord sighed. "I don't like it any better than you, but..."

"Fine..."

~o~

That night at diner, Hazelwood glanced up at her fellow Taffy 1 destroyers as they sat down, taking in the Japanese school swimsuits and short sailor tops, accessorized with glasses and cat ear headbands. It was absolutely adorable, and also prime blackmail material. So, naturally, she snapped a picture with her phone.

"Told you so," she said.

"Yes, you did..." her Taffy-mates groaned in mutual embarrassment.


	491. Rule 1794

**Rule 1794. Woe betide those that dare ruin Ashigara and Captain Yonehara's dates.  
**  
*KA-BOOM!*

"Honey!" Ashigara called down from the upstairs bathroom she shared with Captain Sosuke Yonehara. "Please tell me that isn't an attack on Yokosuka!"

Sighing, Sosuke stood and walked up to the window, peeking out through the shades. "Good news, Ashi," he called back. "It's not an attack on Yokosuka."

There was a long pause, before Ashigara called down again, "What's the bad news?"

Sosuke looked out again, seeing several buildings merrily burning and both Yuubaris chewing out an unfamiliar American cruiser. "It seems the Yuubaris have had another lab accident."

"Well, that's fine then."

Pulling away from the window, Sosuke was able to catch Ashigara descending the last few stairs, resplendent in a long sleeveless red dress, long white gloves, and earrings that she still wouldn't tell him where she'd gotten. Despite it being a scene he'd seen several times by now, it still took his breath away.

"That's something the Admiral can handle with our without us," she continued. "Shall we?"

Sosuke immediately dipped into a bow, holding the door open. "As my lady wishes," he intoned.

Ashigara, giggling, headed for the car, Sosuke following right behind. This date was off to a good start.

~o~

"You've got to be kidding me," Sosuke groaned fifteen minutes later.

"Sorry, sir," the ensign driving the car they were in apologized. "But as you can see, I don't think this is going to clear up anytime soon."

Several hundred feet in front of them was the twisted remains of a freight train, the operator arguing with the Re-class battleship that had defected after the Going Merry incident. Said Re-class was half embedded in what was left of the engine, making the cause of the crash fairly obvious. Though, on a second look, he was arguing with her tail - and from the gesticulations, losing.

"Can't we turn around?" Ashigara asked.

"I would if I could, but..." The ensign helplessly gestured at the traffic jam behind him. "Until that clears up and I can back out, we're not going anywhere."

"I beg to differ."

Sosuke frowned, both at the comment and at the fact that Ashigara was taking off her shoes. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting us out of here," she replied, opening the door and stepping out.

It didn't take long for Sosuke to figure out the plan. "Might want to grab onto something," he informed the driver, grabbing a handle and headrest himself.

The car wobbled, then lurched up, tilting wildly before coming to a somewhat unstable stop. A glance out the window confirmed that they were now well above the level of the surrounding cars, and then the car lurched forward, wobbling again.

"W-What's she doing, sir?" the driver moaned, looking distinctly green.

"Heh, she's carrying the car," Sosuke answered. "That must be quite the sight for all those other drivers."

~o~

Despite the detour and having to take several minutes for the driver to get over his motion sickness, they still got the restaurant with time to spare. The run-in with that nesting goose four dates back had driven that lesson home.

Said restaurant was a relatively new sushi restaurant, of top quality but also considerable size and overt glitz, in contrast to most top-shelf sushi restaurants in Japan. One reviewer had derisively compared it to an American steakhouse. Despite that, the atmosphere and some truly excellent sushi (something even its staunchest critics grudgingly admitted) made it extremely popular, with reservations selling out months in advance.

Not for the first time, Sosuke praised his military connections as he and Ashigara walked up to the restaurant, the shipgirl barely repressing girlish squeals at the standout feature of the restaurant.

"Oh my God this is amazing!" Ashigara squealed as she ran up to the massive fish tank, a passing yellowfin tuna giving her a baleful look out of the corner of its eye.

That tank was one of the secrets to the restaurant's quality. Stocked with fish and other marine life intended for the sushi counter and carefully designed to mimic the proper sea environment, it had been a highly successful experiment that enhanced quality and gave the restaurant a standout feature that everyone talked about.

"Ma'am, if you could follow us, please..." the maitre'd interjected.

Quickly schooling her features, Ashigara rejoined Sosuke as the couple walked to their table and were seated, the two settling into debate over which rolls to get. Ashigara's tastes ran more traditional, emphasizing nigiri with various exotic varieties of fish, while Sosuke had picked up a taste for American-style rolls. They were just coming to an agreement when the doors were loudly thrown open.

[Ladies and gentlemen!] a female voice echoed throughout the restaurant. [Tonight's entertainment is brought to you by _random acts of_ _violence_!]

This was followed by the sound of several _assault rifles_ firing at the ceiling, to the cackling delight of their apparent leader.

[Ah, I love the show biz!]

Slowly, Sosuke and Ashigara turned around, spying a white-haired, red-eyed woman that both immediately pegged as a Destroyer Water Demon, except this one was wearing a nice suit instead of the usual outfit. Even the helmet was missing! And behind her were over a dozen men in full dark grey combat gear, wielding assault rifles with underbarrel grenade launchers.

[Now, you may be wondering what we're doing here,] the Abyssal calmly stated as she walked further into the restaurant. [Call it an audition, that's the best way to describe it. See, there are-]

"Oh, shut up!"

The Destroyer Water Demon paused in her monologue to send an incredulous look at the brown-haired woman in a nice red dress who'd just interrupted her. [Looks like we've got a hero, boys!] she announced, to snickers from her mooks. Then her face fell into a frown, a very large pistol appearing in her hands. [And you know what they say about he-] She paused, her face twisting in realization. [Oh, you've got to be kidding me! Of all the sushi restaurants in this goddamn city, I attack the one with a _shipgirl_ visiting?!]

"Believe me," Ashigara said, drawing a sword out of her hold and handing it to Yonehara. "I'm as pleased to be here as you are. Can you handle the mooks, honey?"

"Of course I can."

"Good." Grasping her dress, she tore a long slit up its side. "Because this bitch is _mine_."

[Pft, what's an unarmed shipgirl like you gonna do?] the Abyssal scoffed, brandishing her gun. [Just die already.]

Her pistol fired, but Ashigara was already moving, leaving the heavy slug to turn the table to splinters. The Destroyer Water Demon only had time to blink before Ashigara's fist met her nose.

~o~

"When I first went on a trip to Tokyo," Fubuki said wistfully, gazing at the soaked and wrecked restaurant, as well as the police cars surrounding it. "And on any further trips, I liked to walk around near that sushi place and look at the fish in the tank. I thought, someday I'll be old enough, and rich enough, and have enough time, and I'll go there." The destroyer whirled around, glaring at Ashigara. "And you broke it!"

The heavy cruiser glared right back. Soaked wet, her face covered in bruises, and her dress utterly unsalvageable, it was clear that Fubuki was getting on her very last nerve.

"Hey, that Abyssal did most of the damage!" she threw back. "Hell, she's the one who threw me into that fish tank!"

"You didn't even kill it!" Fubuki snapped back. "So that's no excuse!"

"Ladies, please," Sosuke groaned from where he was nursing icepacks on all his limbs. "Can we not do this? Besides, nobody died, that has to count for something."

"I'd agree with Captain Yonehara on this, Fubuki," Ooyodo added. "We have the ten humans in custody, and civilian casualties seem to be limited to... fish. By any reasonable measure, this was a very successful outcome."

Sighing, Fubuki threw one last wistful look at the wrecked sushi restaurant, then turned back to them. "Alright. I've budgeted Carrier Division 2 to the pursuit; considering the damage you did to that Destroyer Water Demon, it shouldn't be hard to bag it. On a related note, Captain Yonehara, Ashigara, do we need to talk about use of reasonable force?"

"They interrupted our date," Ashigara growled. _"Fuck_ reasonable force."

Ooyodo nodded. "Checks out."

 **AN: I hate having to do this, but Meep123456, please stop asking to update. In case you haven't noticed, this fic updates daily, and your comments are getting on my nerves. Thank you.**


	492. Rule 1799

**Rule 1799. To the person who duct taped bags of poi to New Jersey's wall, report to the admiral immediately before New Jersey finds you.  
**  
Yawning, New Jersey walked into her room, shedding clothes as she went. So tired was she that she decided to forgo sleepwear, instead flopping onto her bed naked. Sadly, she wasn't so tired that she didn't notice the little baggies plastered to her wall.

"The fuck is this stuff?" she mumbled, giving one a firm poke. It was soft and squishy and yet had a hint of stretchiness to it. "Ah, fuck it. I'll worry about it tomorrow."

Climbing into bed and shoving the covers over herself, Jersey was almost instantly asleep. Sadly, her sleep was not sound in the slightest. In fact, it was infested with dreams of talking, lecherous coconuts, blond dogs incessantly barking "Poi!", and white goop. Everywhere.

"I have got to stop eating pepperoni pizza before bed..." the battleship moaned as she woke up the next morning, far earlier than she wanted. "Stupid dreams."

Swinging her legs onto the floor, she stood and stretched in a move that would have left the base's entire male population, and a significant chunk of its female, unconscious on the floor. As it was, nobody else was there and so nothing happened, except that when she was done her eyes fell on the bags still stuck to her wall.

"Ah, right. What the fuck is in those?" she said. Reaching out, she gave one a hearty poke; once again, it was soft and squishy and yet felt stretchy. Frowning, Jersey plucked one off the wall and opened it, taking a sniff.

As the information from her nose hit her brain, her eyes widened, hands shaking in rage. "Poi..." she growled. "This is poi..." With a howl of rage, she hurled the poi into and through the nearest wall. "WHO TAPED MOTHERFUCKING POI TO MY WALL?!"

A creaking sound cut through her rage, and New Jersey glanced back at the wall to see a massive crack radiating out from the hole the bag of poi had left.

"Aw, fuck me," New Jersey groaned, right as the entire room collapsed around her ears.

Much like with an earlier example of such a collapse, this also brought down another battleship in bed. "So this is how Alabama felt..." Indiana muttered as she clambered off her bed and onto the rubble. "Yo! Jersey! You alive down there?!"

Inarticulate sounds of muffled cursing wafted up from beneath the wood and drywall.

"Cool beans. I'll be right back with someone to dig you out."

~o~

"Guys..." Hazelwood groaned at the stack of poi bags on McCord's bed. "Tell me you weren't the ones who taped all that poi to New Jersey's wall. Lie to me if you have to."

"Nah, that was totally us," Trathen bragged. "Pretty good, huh?"

"'Pretty good', she says," Hazelwood spat. "'Pretty good', she says! So New Jersey going on a warpath to find those responsible is a 'pretty good' outcome, huh?!"

Trathen and McCord exchanged glances. "Yes?" the latter offered.

"I see," Hazelwood replied, deathly calm. "And I suppose the Taffy 3 destroyers, plus Samuel B. 'Blood for the blood god' Roberts, also taking up that crusade is a 'pretty good' outcome. Huh?"

Now the glances the two destroyers exchanged were filled with panic. "We'll just... uh... surrender ourselves to the Admiral?" Trathen finally said.

"Probably a good idea."


	493. Rule 1803

**Rule 1803. You are not allowed to use the tooth fairy excuse to sneak into someone else's room.  
**  
"It occurs to me," Juneau opined. "That perhaps we shouldn't be summoning partially completed ships."

San Juan followed her elder sister's gaze to the recently summoned Newark, a Fargo-class light cruiser that had been about 65% complete when she was scrapped postwar. Taking Japanese data on partially-completed ships, the Navy had summoned her with a modified ritual, and as far as San Juan knew, there hadn't been any problems.

"Please tell me she's not like that crazy ultranationalist Japanese carrier Wreck mentioned."

"She's not," Juneau quickly assured her. "And, honestly, she hasn't actually _done_ anything. I just... look, I don't like how she's eyeing some of the destroyers."

Once again San Juan looked over at Newark, and grimaced. The other cruiser was eyeing some of the destroyers; a pack of Bensons, from the look of them. And- was that drool?!

"Okay, I see what you mean," she said, feeling faintly ill. "Well, as long as she doesn't act, we'll just have to live with it. And maybe talk to Fargo and Huntington, have them steer her to some of the more mature destroyers."

"Sounds good."

Unfortunately, neither cruiser noticed Newark getting handed a copy of _Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors_ by a glowing New Jersey. Had they noticed, things might have turned out differently.

~o~

Later that night, the door to the Taffy 3 destroyer dorm slowly and silently slid open. A dark figure crept in through the open door, giggling softly, and sneaked over to Johnston's bed, looming over the sleeping destroyer.

"Oh, Johnston..." the figure breathed. "The strongest..." The figure reached down towards Johnston's head-

And then suddenly the beam of a flashlight illuminated Newark's back.

"Hi," Hoel dryly stated. "Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing in our room?"

"Uh..."

Panicking, Newark's eyes flicked around casting about for an excuse. "Um... I'm... the tooth fairy!" Plastering on her best smile, the cruiser prayed that Hoel bought it.

From the frown, she didn't. "And I'm sure you've got a bridge to Terabithia to sell me, too," she drawled. "Now get out."

"Or what?" Newark threw back, trying desperately to shove her rising panic back down again.

"Well..."

Suddenly surging forward, Hoel grabbed Newark by the collar and swung her against the wall with a loud thump. Heermann and Johnston made noises and rolled over, but stayed asleep.

"Just a little reminder that Johnston may be more badass, and Heermann may be more lucky, but I'm no slouch myself," Hoel hissed. _"Especially_ when I'm defending my sisters. Clear?"

"C-Crystal," Newark croaked.

"Good. Now get out. And don't make me repeat myself again."

With that, Hoel dropped Newark, the cruiser immediately scurrying out the door. Satisfied, the destroyer switched off her flashlight and climbed back into bed.

Unfortunately, she didn't check outside, where Newark was leaning against the wall, blood flushing her cheeks around the hands that grasped it. "Hoel..." she breathed. "Dear Hoel... you'll be mine... I'll make sure of that..."


	494. Rule 1807

**Rule 1807. No badgering retired ship girls who have retired for legitimate reasons.  
**  
Accounting. The one part of running a restaurant that Texas didn't like. It reminded her a little too much of the bad old days of aiming guns by means of tedious calculations on firing tables. Thank god for the computers. Still, it was nice to keep seeing the steady flow of money into her own pockets. The Navy pension was enough to live on and get her restaurant started, but she had ambitions! Ambitions beyond her restaurant that involved lots of expenses!

Luckily, her phone rang before she could work herself into a true lather. "Hello?" she said once she'd picked it up.  
 _  
"How do you do it?"  
_  
Texas frowned at the unfamiliar French accent. "Pardon?"

 _"How do you do it?"_ whoever it was repeated. _"How do you stay strong in the face of every attempt to get you out of retirement?"  
_  
"I'm sorry, but who is this?" Texas replied, just a little testy.

There was a pause on the line, and then the speaker answered, sheepish. _"Uh, this is MN Paris."  
_  
"Thank you," Texas replied, leaning back for a long call. "I'm guessing there was some sort of incident that precipitated this?"

 _"Yes..."_ was the miserable reply. _"Provence set one of her birds on me, and said she wouldn't recall it until I unretired! Then, when the Admiral took care of that, Jean Bart and Jean Bart got into a screaming fight about it! And then Droits de L'Homme tried to shanghai me into beating up Indefatigable!"  
_  
Texas whistled. As annoying as New York had gotten, nobody had tried anything else. "Have you called anyone else for help? 'Cause things never got that bad for me."

 _"I did! But Mikasa, San Giorgio, and Aurora are obsolete enough to be mostly useless, and Centurion just laughed in my face!"  
_  
The battleship's grip on the receiver tightened, the plastic shrieking in protest. "Why that stupid-"

 _"It's fine. I called a beef-eating, gin-soaked lobster, so we're even."  
_  
"Sometimes I think you guys take that rivalry a bit far..." Texas muttered. "But anyway, here's what I recommend..."

Several minutes later, Texas put down the phone, satisfied that Paris could resolve her problem. She had just turned back to her paperwork when a knock sounded out at her door.

"Oh, I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered as she stood and walked over.

Despite the fact that all she saw at the front door was Wasp in a red raincoat, waving through the door, that feeling of trepidation didn't go away. Still, the battleship let the carrier in; it was the polite thing to do.

"Might I ask what you're doing here, Wasp?" she asked.

"Gimme one second," the carrier replied, before shucking off her raincoat to reveal that she was wearing _nothing_ underneath. "Ah, that's better. Never thought it'd get weird to wear clothes, but here we are."

A loud slap echoed through the thankfully-empty restaurant, and Wasp turned around to see Texas cradling her head in her hands. "You okay?"

In lieu of answering, Texas grabbed Wasp by the shoulders and, with a nervous glance out her front windows, steered her into her office. "Wasp..." she growled once she made sure the door was locked. _"Why the hell are you naked?"  
_  
Wasp blinked, and then let out an "Oh" of understanding. "Oh yeah, I should probably explain that, shouldn't I? Right... okay, first, you heard about the ice cream contest from a few weeks back, right?" Texas nodded. "Well, one of the punishments was that I don't have air conditioning available. By which I mean my internal ACU."

For the second time in ten minutes, Texas whistled. "That's... quite the punishment." She then resumed glaring at Wasp. "That still doesn't explain why you're naked."

"Well, I had to get back at the Admiral somehow..."

~o~

 _"So hoooooot..." Wasp groaned._

 _One of the few downsides of the shipgirl existence was that their boilers, which already ran very hot, heated up their compact bodies far worse than when they were steel hulls. Even in Arctic temperatures, shipgirls without air conditioning installed tended to feel warm and cozy, and said air conditioning was generally the first thing retrofitted in._

 _Wasp was not in the Arctic. Wasp was in Norfolk in the summer, her internal ACU had been disabled by her_ traitorous _fairies, and the normal air conditioning was already struggling to keep the ambient temperature at 60 degrees. The fans she'd plugged in didn't help. Stripping down to the smallest bikini she'd owned had made things just barely tolerable in her own room, but she could hardly go out in it, and putting on anything heavier was torture. Oh, she wasn't going to suffer any heat-related ailments anytime soon, not with her magazines and avgas tanks empty, but it sucked balls._

 _"Ugh, screw this!" she snapped, untying the strings that held her bikini together and tossing it in a corner. Immediately, she felt better. Still hot, but it was a low-grade heat that could be counteracted by a cold shower. Which she immediately took._

 _Unfortunately, it was in the shower that her thoughts reminded her of her earlier predicament. "I can't go out like this," she muttered. "Everyone would howl, Admiral first, and I still need to eat." She blinked, thinking that over again. "Yeah. Everyone would howl. But... I need to check something."_

 _After a few minutes to dry herself off, Wasp, still undressed, pulled out a small packet that detailed the uniform regulations for shipgirls. It was short; when the First Five - Saratoga, West Virginia, San Francisco, San Diego, and Nicholas - had been summoned, the Navy had tried to enforce normal uniform regulations._

 _They'd failed. Spectacularly. The fate of poor old Admiral Williams was still talked about in hushed whispers. The new regulations were short, and could be summed up as "Have a consistent outfit, and don't have it be too outrageous", though they'd had to bend that last provision with Iowa._

 _Nowhere did it say you actually had to_ wear _anything._

 _"Perfect," Wasp grinned, composing and firing off a quick email. "Oh, and it's lunchtime, too!"_

~o~

 _Admiral Briggs paused in putting on his jacket as an email notification pinged._

 _"'Give me back my AC and this stops.'" he read, shaking his head and chuckling. "Oh, Wasp."_

 _The sound of screeching tires, followed shortly by a crunching sounds, drew his attention to the window. Poking his head out, his eyes widened at the sight._

 _Down in the square below was Wasp, wearing not a single stitch of clothing and clearly utterly uncaring about that fact. Behind her, a Humvee had wrapped itself around a tree, the inhabitants leaning out the window staring at her, and the carrier had gathered both a trail of downed bodies - mostly male, but some female - as well as a gaggle of mesmerized sailors and curious destroyers and destroyer escorts._

 _"Damn you, Wasp," Briggs growled, fists clenched._

~o~

"He caved after a week, which is a pity, because I had a whole lot of escalations planned," Wasp finished. "I only ever got to do the popsicles."

Texas frowned, wondering what popsicles had to do with anything - and then blushed as she came up with the answer. "I see," she said. "But, wait, if he caved-"

"Why am I still naked?" Wasp shrugged. "I like it. I guess I'm a nudist now. Unfortunately, they patched the uniform regs, and I'd never be able to sortie like this, but nobody in the dorms mind my nudity, so it's fine."

"Right..." Texas muttered. "We've gotten _way_ off topic, though. Why are you here, talking to me?"

"Oh, right!" Wasp said, snapping her fingers. "I need you to unretire so we can do a coup to restore the old uniform regs."

Seconds later, the door to Texas' BBQ restaurant opened, Wasp soaring out seconds later to hit a tree across the street. Her raincoat soon followed, fluttering down to mostly cover her body.

"And stay out!" Texas bellowed, slamming the door shut.

Shaking her head, Wasp stood and slipped the raincoat back on. "Touchy..."


	495. Rule 1810

**Rule 1810. Yes, we know it's Valentine's Day. You still have to either be off duty or file for leave if you plan to go off base to spend time with your significant other.**

"So," Kongo said as she ate her breakfast.

"So," Ashigara replied.

"Staying in today on this fine Valentine's?" the battleship asked.

"Yup," the heavy cruiser replied. "After the fiasco our last date was, we'll be munching on chocolate and popcorn and watching movies all day. You?"

"Admiral Goto managed to arrange a half-day, and we'll be doing basically the same. Poor darling needs his relaxation."

Any further discussion was interrupted by Iku running past like her hair was on fire, a stack of papers clutched in her hands. "Submitsubmitsubmitsubmit!" she chanted.

"Hmm..." Ashigara hummed as Iku sped off out of sight. "Want to make a bet?"

Very carefully, Kongo placed her chopsticks down, and then leaned forward, hands tenting in front of her face. "What do you have in mind?"

"How many shipgirls do you think will get in trouble for not filing for leave for their Valentine's dates?" the heavy cruiser answered. "I say... 47. And whoever's closer to the actual number wins."

"Interesting. And the payment?"

There was a pause in the conversation as Jintsuu ran past like a bear was after her, wailing "I forgot about the leaaaaaave!"

"How does 50,000 yen sounds?" Ashigara answered once the light cruiser was gone. "No offense, but you don't have anything I want and I'd really rather not trade favors."

"Understandable," Kongo said, standing and holding out her hand. "It's a deal, then."

Smiling, Ashigara grabbed and shook - and then Hiei ran screaming passed them, pursued by a dark brown blob with hateful red eyes and smelling of chocolate and sugar. "How did this happeeeeeeen!" she screamed.

Both shipgirls stared in shock at the apparent chocolate monster, especially when Mamiya ran past decked out in welding gear and wielding a flamethrower.

"How does she do that?" Ashigara faintly wondered.

"I gave up trying to understand my sister's inability to cook a long time ago," Kongo replied, clapping her on the back. "Now go meet your man! You guys have a holiday to celebrate!"

~o~

"Girls!" Hibiki announced with more fervor than her sisters had ever heard her, smacking the massive notepad she'd set up. "Today, Tenryuu is going on a date with Masaru! We-"

"Y'know, you can just call him 'her boyfriend', nanodesu," Inazuma cut in.

"I refuse!" Hibiki snapped, jabbing a finger at her sister. "There's something nefarious going on with him! And to keep our momma safe, we're going to follow them on their date!"

There was silence, Ikazuchi and Akatsuki exchanging uneasy looks, and then Inazuma stood. "Right. Have fun with that, nanodesu," she said. " _I_ , on the other hand, have a date of my own to get to. We've got a movie to see, and ice cream to eat, and may be we'll even..." The destroyer paused, blushing furiously. "H-Hold h-hands. Kyaaaa!" And with that, she sped out the door.

"Right... well, we'll have to do this without her, then." Turning back to the board, she gave it a hearty slap. "We're going to be shadowing the date! And as we do so, we will uncover Masaru's nefarious plans for our momma!"

Once again, Ikazuchi and Akatsuki exchanged glances "Eh, whatever, it's not like we have anything better to do," Ikazuchi shrugged, Akatsuki nodding along.

"Excellent," Hibiki said, rubbing her hands together. "Alright, here's how we'll do it..."

Grasping one of the pages of the giant notepad, Hibiki made to lift it, only for the door to slide open. "Got room for one more?" Tatsuta asked, her usual teasing smile nowhere to be seen.

~o~

Two hours later, and three of Desdiv 6, plus Tatsuta, were parked behind some shrubbery in full forest camo and facepaint, watching Tenryuu and Masaru on their date. A date that had been entirely innocent, starting with lunch and just wrapping up a detour in an arcade. A date that had proven utterly boring for the watchers.

"Hibikiiiii..." Akatsuki whined. "Can we just go back to base? We've been here two hours and he's been nothing but a perfect gentleman."

"And she's got over two hundred Victorian romance novels on her tablet she 'borrowed' from Inazuma," Ikazuchi added. "Trust me, she knows what a perfect gentleman is."

"Auuu! You swore you'd never tell!"

"Oops..."

"I have to agree with Akatsuki," Tatsuta stated as the purple-haired shipgirl started strangling Ikazuchi. "I don't think he's going to do anything nefarious, and besides, my sister can take care of herself."

With that, the cruiser tensed, waiting for an explosion. It didn't happen. Instead, the snow-haired destroyer nodded. "Da. Go. I'll keep at this a little longer."

Nodding, Tatsuta moved to break up Akatsuki and Ikazuchi, before leaving. Once they were gone, Hibiki stowed her binoculars and muttered, "Watchers have gone. Moving to phase 2."

Back on the sidewalk, Tenryuu began jogging towards a public restroom, Masaru leaning against a lamppost to wait. Taking the chance, Hibiki burst from the underbrush, grabbed Masaru before he could react, and yanked him into the underbrush, slamming him against a tree.

"Scream," she growled, producing a knife. "And I start cutting off bits. Understood?"

Masaru was only too happy to nod frantically.

"Good. Now, tell me about the Mayans, and their designs on my mother..."

~o~

Tatsuta winced as Tenryuu paced in front of her like a caged tiger. Normally, it was the other way around: Tatsuta scaring Tenryuu, usually into doing something for her. For whatever reason, Tenryuu was never able to stay mad at her younger sister.

Everyone else had no such immunity, though Desdiv 6 were only very rarely - and justifiably - subjected to her wrath.

"I can't _fucking_ believe her," Tenryuu spat. "Masaru's damn lucky I found those two quickly. I don't know what she was going to do to him. And for what? Jealousy? A bunch of conspiracy theories? Gah!"

Throwing up her hands, Tenryuu went back to pacing, and as Tatsuta watched she could almost see a dragon coiling around her sister. Then she blinked, and it was gone.

"Right," she said. "No ice cream for a month. On _top_ of whatever punishment Admiral Goto levies for being AWOL."

Tatsuta shuddered at the thought. "Isn't that a bit... harsh?"

"Yeah, it is. Maybe next time she won't ruin one of my dates."


	496. Rule 1815

**Rule 1815. There is no such thing as an "Unlimited Torpedo Works" stop telling the destroyers this!**

"Story! Story! Story!"

Primaguet smiled at the dozen destroyers crammed into one admittedly large room. The destroyer shipgirls of the Bourrasque class had, through the circumstances of the war, become a bit sidelined; the L'Adroit class had been summoned first, and by the time the Bourrasques had been summoned France actually had enough destroyers for its operational needs, leaving the somewhat outdated destroyer girls with little tactical role. Stuck in Toulon, they retained a certain innocence that the rest of the French destroyer fleet lacked. And it was that innocence that kept the cruiser watching over them.

"Hey!"

Even when they got... annoying, as evidenced by Ouragan staring at her not two inches from her face.

"When are you gonna start the story?!" the destroyer haughtily demanded.

"Hmm, I don't know..." Primaguet hummed. "Maybe I shouldn't read you a story, if you're going to be so demanding."

Ouragan opened her mouth, likely for another scathing remark, only to freeze as an aura of pure _death_ and _misery_ rose up behind her where her sisters were eagerly seated. "Ah, right, yeah, and we don't want that," she said, backing off and sitting down again.

With the murderous hate dying down, Primaguet took in a deep breath as she prepared the story.

"Once, there was a destroyer who wanted to be a hero..."

~o~

"This is so weird..."

"What's weird?" Foudroyant asked, following her sister L'Alcyon's silver-eyed gaze to a knot of whispering girls who appeared to be around their own age. "Are those some of the Bourrasque sisters?"

"Yup," the white-haired destroyer nodded. "Every time one of them've seen me over the last week, they've all gotten scared. Or awed. Or both."

"Huh. Weird," Foudroyant replied, taking a sip of her soda. "Want me to go ask 'em what's up?"

"Please. This is weirding me out."

Nodding, Foudroyant walked over to the distant trio, L'Alcyon watching. From her vantage, she could see discussion, then surprise, and then Foudroyant was walking back, the Bourrasques sprinting away giggling.

"So?" L'Alcyon prompted once her sister was close enough.

"They seem to think you're the wielder of something called 'Unlimited Torpedo Works' because of your white hair and silver eyes." Foudroyant sighed, shaking her head. "Where the hell do they get these ideas?"

~o~

"AUGH!"

"TENRYUU!" the destroyers of Desdiv 6 all screamed as their momboat collapsed to the water, one leg a bleeding stump from the torpedo that'd hit it.

Several miles away, a Chi-class cruiser stood, looking quite smug. That wasn't too unusual; Abyssal light forces frequently tried to interdict expeditions and coastal shipping, and the little destroyer squadron (containing four certified badasses and one in training) was often used to bait them out. Chi-class cruisers, with their fondness for torpedoes, were on the heavy side for these encounters, but were still fairly common and Ikazuchi alone had killed four already.

This torpedo cruiser, though, it was a different breed. As Ikazuchi and Akatsuki sprinted for their fallen momboat, Inazuma examined the Abyssal and ran over the ambush in her mind. The sheer _size_ of that salvo, something even Kitakami and Ooi would be hard-pressed to match; the number of follow-up launches; and, of course, the sheer colossal _arrogance_ of letting them actually retrieve Tenryuu.

Yes, this was no ordinary Chi-class cruiser. It was the one that had every American cruiser from Omaha to Newport News cursing its name.

The Torpedo Queen.

"You shall handle this, then?" Hibiki said around a swig from her flask.

Inazuma nodded.

"Good luck," Hibiki said, before steaming for Tenryuu. And not a moment too soon, either. The Torpedo Queen had apparently gotten tired of waiting and launched another salvo.

Gritting her teeth, Ikazuchi handed Tenryuu off to Hibiki and sped into the path of the salvo, her anchor spinning in her hand and crackling with electricity. "Back... off!" she shouted, lowering the spinning anchor into the water. Water was flash-electrolyzed, the hydrogen and oxygen reacting in a massive reaction that was half explosion, half continued combustion. Every torpedo that met it was shredded.

"Don't... ask me... to do that... again..." the destroyer wheezed once she stopped the spin, Inazuma passing by.

"Don't worry, I've got this, nanodesu."

"Cool..."

No torpedoes reached out as Desdiv 6 and Tenryuu continued to retreat, minus Inazuma. Perhaps the Abyssal was curious at the audacity of a lone destroyer silently cruising towards her, or perhaps it simply felt it could catch up at its leisure. Either way, her sisters and momboat were getting away in good order. Finally, the two were in visual range, though that was still a distance of a couple miles.

The Abyssal leered at Inazuma. [So... a little girl, come to play hero? Well, little girl, I-]

"Oh, _shut up,_ " Inazuma snapped. "I liked it better when you assholes didn't talk, nanodesu. Just tell me one thing, Torpedo Queen."

Suddenly, the sky darkened and then turned red. A wind picked up, the sea turning black and gears shifting among the clouds. And there were torpedoes _everywhere.  
_  
"Do you have enough torpedoes?"


	497. Rule 1822

**Rule 1822. None of the science girls are allowed to experiment with age changing devices.**

Tenryuu's first day back on active duty after getting her leg repaired was, for a blessed several hours, perfectly uneventful. The only oddity was a missing Akatsuki, and Hibiki had assured her that the destroyer was fine. Then mid-afternoon came a knock at the door, and Tenryuu opened it to find a purple-haired young woman in a sailor uniform that looked suspiciously like Akatsuki, except that she was fully filled out and a good four inches taller than Tenryuu herself.

"Hi, Tenryuu," the woman said, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head.

The light cruiser narrowed her eyes at the familiarity. "Who the hell are you?"

The woman flinched, looking hurt, but before Tenryuu could answer Ikazuchi poked her head out around her. "Wow, what the hell happened to you, Akatsuki?" she asked.

Blinking in shock, Tenryuu's head whirled around to stare at Ikazuchi. Then a young blonde girl wearing Bismarck's outfit poked her head in next to Akatsuki and jabbed an accusatory finger at Ikazuchi. "Hey, you said a bad word!"

Tenryuu's gaze slowly creaked around to said young girl, eyes wide.

"Yeah, I did. What's your point, you little brat?" Ikazuchi threw back.

"Brat?!" the blonde girl snapped, her voice seemingly aging a decade or two. "You're littler than me!"

Ikazuchi narrowed her eyes, eyeballing the difference in height between them. Then she kept staring, steam starting to leak out of her ears.

"Oi..." Akatsuki sighed, before bringing her fist down on the blonde girl's head. "Bismarck, no brain-breaking my sister."

"Ow!" Bismarck yelped, clutching the rising goose egg on her head. "Child abuse! Child abuse!"

"You're only a child in body!"

Tenryuu simply stared at Akatsuki and Bismarck - their physical ages seemingly swapped - before she managed to croak out one word.

"What."

Akatsuki and Bismarck cut their bickering short, staring in worry at the light cruiser, while Ikazuchi gave her a hard poke. A hard poke that sent her toppling to the ground.

"I think you broke her," Hibiki deadpanned.

~o~

Tenryuu's return to consciousness was slow and fitful.

"This is taking too long."

"Wait, Bismarck, what are you- Hey! Stop!"

*SPLASH!*

At least, until it wasn't. Sputtering, Tenryuu sat bolt upright, eyes, taking in worried looks from Inazuma and Ikazuchi, Hibiki's usual placidness, and an adult Akatsuki grinding her knuckles into a child Bismarck's hair.

"Oh... I was hoping that was a dream..." she said weakly.

"You're not the only one, nanodesu..." Inazuma muttered.

"Sorry, Tenryuu," Akatsuki apologized, dropping Bismarck down on her butt with a startled "Hey!". "I know this is a shock, but, uh, I need you to keep an eye on Bismarck while Akashi gets this sorted out."

"Akashi, huh?" Tenryuu parrotted, fingers tapping on the hilt of her sword. "And here I thought she was the sane one compared to the Yuubaris..."

"Please don't kill her before she fixes this," the purple-haired destroyer deadpanned.

"Wait, why do I have to stay here?!" Bismarck demanded.

"Do you want to stay in the same dorm as Nagato?" Akatsuki shot back. "Looking like that?"

Bismarck immediately shuddered at the thought. "On second thought, this place is great! D'you have any beer?"

"You're not drinking any beer," Tenryuu immediately replied.

"Oh come on!"


	498. Rule 1824

**Rule 1824. No, you may not turn the lounge into a swimming pool.  
**  
"Swimming!" Kagero cheered as she ran down the halls of Yokosuka in her swimsuit.

"Swimming!" Shiranui and Kasumi agreed, following their fellow destroyer.

"Jiiiiii..." Arare hummed as she brought up the rear.

Speeding past amused sailors and shipgirls, the four destroyers skidded to a halt in front of the pool's doors, threw them open, piled in-

And then Kagero, still in the lead, was brained in the forehead by a volleyball, sending her flying backwards into a tangle of destroyer limbs.

"Ow..." all four destroyers groaned, with only Shiranui in a position to notice the state of the pool: namely, the massive water polo game paused for lack of ball, an apologetic Kursk power-walking towards them.

"Sorry about that," the nuclear submarine said, casually tossing the ball back in the pool before attacking the destroyer knot. "I'm afraid they're going to be at it for at least another hour."

*SPLASH!*

"Foul! You got water in my eyes!"

"You're wearing goggles, you dipshit!"

"Foul! Foul!"

"Maybe two..." the submarine muttered.

"But... we wanna swim!" Kagero protested.

"You want to try, be my guest," Kursk replied, indicating the pool.

Now finally untangled, Kagero stood, took a step towards the pool - and froze as one of the shipgirls in the water was slammed head-first into the concrete wall with enough force to crack it, though that didn't stop her from kicking back. Even Kursk blowing her whistle didn't shake her out of it.

"That's a foul!" she announced.

"Oh, come on!"

"C'mon, Kagero," Kasumi said, grabbing the younger destroyer by the arm and hauling her away. "We can swim another time."

It was a subdued group that made its way back to their shared room, talking limited to Kasumi's steady stream of under-the-breath grumbling. As they passed one of the lounges, though, Kagero's eyes narrowed, and then widened, a grin coming over her face.

"Hmm..."

~o~

"Kagero, you are of genius!" the destroyer declared as she stood, several days later, in said lounge. This particular lounge had been set down from the outside hall, and Kagero had surreptitiously hollowed out that space and relocated the furniture before filling it with water. Now they had a swimming pool they could use all the time!

Sitting down and removing her shoes and socks, the destroyer dipped her toes in. Perfect!

"Auuuu! My novels!"

Or maybe not. Kagero looked behind her at Inazuma, who was looking very distressed by something. "What?"

Growling, Inazuma stomped forward, grabbed Kagero by the head, and wrenched her gaze to a bookshelf, the bottom half completely underwater.

"Oh."

"That's all you have to say?" Inazuma snarled.

"Yeah," Kagero stated, heedless of danger. "They're just boo- ARGHLBLARGHL."

Hauling up a now unconscious and smoking Kagero, a few stray sparks of electricity still coursing over her arms, Inazuma shrugged before tossing her back-first into the water and then wading in towards the bookshelf. Maybe she could salvage something...


	499. Rule 1825

**Rule 1825. Arashi is banned from the carrier dorms.  
**  
"Package, get!" Arashi declared to her room.

This proclamation was met with silence. Maikaze was the only one in the room, and she had her headphones on, blaring music.

"Aw, shoot," Arashi grumbled. "I wanted them to see my new kites. Oh well." Retrieving a box knife from the locked drawer they kept it in (after the last time Kagero or any number of other destroyers had cut themselves on it) and opened up the box. Kites came out: flat kites and box kites, shaped like airplanes. Zeroes, Kates, Vals - and Hellcats, Avengers, and Dauntlesses. There was even a Swordfish mixed in.

"Now, where to try these..." Arashi mused. After a moment of thought, she grinned. "I know! I'll go to that big open space near the carrier dorms! I'm sure they won't mind."

Grabbing the Zero and Dauntless kites, as well as some string, Arashi left the room. And barely two seconds after she was out the door Maikaze happened to bob her head right to spot the box of kites. She immediately threw her headphones off and picked up the Hellcat kite, staring at it in shock. And it did not escape her that there was room for at least a few more kites in the big hunk of cardboard.

"Well, this is going to end badly, whatever 'this' is," she said, before picking up her headphones and slipping them back on. "Not my problem, though."

~o~

Kongo was not the only shipgirl in Yokosuka to enjoy a spot of tea in the afternoons. The carriers of the First Air Fleet liked to do so as well, bonding over shared trauma. Sadly, with Shokaku and Zuikaku, Japan's best carriers, often out on sortie, that was often reduced to the Nagumo Four.

And so it was today, everyone sipping on tea in a break in the conversation. It was Soryu, sitting facing the window, who saw it first.

A Dauntless, 1000-lb bomb brandished under its belly, diving straight for the window.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

At Soryu's scream, the other three carriers stood and spun to face the window. Akagi immediately joined Soryu in paralyzed screaming, while Kaga froze, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

Hiryu, who hadn't been caught completely by surprise at Midway, dove for the window, drove a hand through it, and grabbed the Dauntless. Instead of screeching metal, though, she got crumpled fabric.

"Oh, someone is going to pay for this," Hiryu growled, glancing out the window for the perpetrator.

~o~

"Aw, crap," Arashi groaned as her Dauntless kite dove for one of the windows. "Someone's going to yell at me, I just know it."

The burst of broken glass, and the hand clamping on her kite was not what she was expecting.

"Aw, shit," she groaned. "Maybe I can run?"

Then Hiryu poked her head out, looking like Susanoo during typhoon season.

"Fuck."


	500. Rule 1827

**Rule 1827. Dear all subs, surface attacks using deck guns is a measure of** ** _last resort,_** **not a first option.  
**  
"We gotta do something!" U-320 hissed.

U-321 nodded in agreement. There, on the surface, was nearly a hundred Abyssal transports, guarded by Chi-class torpedo cruisers, heavy cruisers, Re-class battleships, and a goddamn _AA Princess_. Whatever was in that convoy, the Abyssals were damn determined to get it through. Oddly, there was a distinct lack of destroyers; clearly, for all that they were worried about aircraft and surface ships, they weren't worried about submarines.

And in fairness, skirting the coast of Iceland like this, they shouldn't have had to worry about submarines. The water was too shallow, and more importantly, as no one expected the Abyssals would be audacious enough to skirt Iceland, the only thing they had to worry about for at least a few hours were the fighters based in Keflavik, and they had no business challenging an Abyssal fleet of this size.

No one told any of the above to the two U-boats sitting on the mud, enough light reaching them to see the passage of the convoy above.

"Yeah, but which ship do we go for?" U-321 wondered. "There's, like, eleventy zillion targets! And the minute we fire we'll be lit up like a British Christmas cake!"

"There's gotta be a super-important transport in here somewhere!" U-320 decided. "Also, torpedoing that AA Princess can't hurt, either."

"We'll call that plan B."

Of course, they couldn't stay underwater forever. Even a convoy plodding along at 10 knots was beyond their underwater speed, and they would run out of electrical charge sooner rather than later.

"Fuck it, let's do this!" U-320 declared.

U-321 nodded, and both submarines slowly emptied their ballast tanks to float towards the surface, each picking her targets. Once at periscope depth, U-320 emptied her bow torpedo tubes at the nearest transport - followed shortly by nearly jumping out of her skin at the sound of a gun going off behind her. She whirled around to see U-321 on the surface, holding her smoking 88mm deck gun and currently blocking a shell with her face.

"Dammit!" U-320 spat, lunging forward and dragging her sister underwater as shells assaulted the space they'd been in.

Then her torpedoes hit.

Whatever was in that cargo ship, it did not like being exploded, and promptly exploded itself in retaliation. The two U-boats were rocked by the blast; the ships on the surface weren't nearly so lucky. Still, it took over half an hour of silence on the mud, hearing depth charges rock the water

"Dammit, U-321," U-320 groaned, poking her insensate sister. "Guns last, not first."

~o~

Admiral Masson frowned at the casualty list. Six ships were in for dock repair, and she only remembered five returning that needed to be supported by their fellows.

"Surcouf?" she wondered.

"Surcouf," Jeanne d'Arc sighed.

"Did she go guns first again?" Masson asked.

"Seems that way," the training cruiser answered.

"Hey, don't you lump me in with the rest of those crazy Americans and lewdmarines!"

Masson leaned around Jeanne to see Surcouf, mobile and annoyed. "How did you get out of...?"

"Someone dropped a repair bucket on me," she said, shrugging. "And I stay surfaced the whole time, instead of going up and down in the water like those damn lewdmarines!" Sighing, she threw up her hands. "I still don't get why I can't just poke the muzzles out..."

"So you sacrifice stealth just to use your guns," Jeanne deadpanned.

"I am plenty stealthy while surfaced, thank you very much," Surcouf retorted, tossing Masson's mouse up and down in her hand as she did so. "And I am a submersible _cruiser_ ; those guns _are_ my primary armament."

Masson didn't reply, too busy tracking the movement of the mouse. "When did you get that?!" she yelped.

Surcouf replied with a grin. "Told ya I was stealthy."


	501. Rule 1830

**Rule 1830: Alternative fuels will not be dispensed to anyone. A lot of your engines are 70 years out of date, and while you can drink the modern stuff, it's better for you in the long run to have the fuels you're used to having.**

"Alright," Yuubari said, tapping her clipboard. "Testing alternative fuel sources commences... now."

"Why do _I_ have to be the one drinking this shit?" Yuubari whined from where was sitting at a table they'd commandeered from the wardroom.

"Because you called heads, you dumbass."

"That coin was rigged!"

"Of course it was rigged! I thought you'd spot it! Now shut up and drink the JP-8!"

A can of the fuel rolled onto the table and, grumbling, Yuubari took the can and took a deep gulp. Any more were forestalled by her sticking out her tongue and trying to wipe the taste out of her mouth.

"Eurgh, that tastes foul!" she complained. Still, she tipped the can over and finished off the fuel before leaning back and closing her eyes. The other Yuubari, meanwhile, watched the progress of the fuel through her twin's body via special sensors she had swallowed about an hour prior.

"Flows fine, boilers are agreeing with it, from what I can see..." Yuubari said, tapping a few commands in. "What do the fairies say?"

"That this is killing fuel economy," Yuubari answered, opening her eyes. "Stuff has a tendency to evaporate when its sprayed in the boilers. Also, the damcon fairies are really worried about it going up."

"Noted..." Yuubari said as she typed in the comments. "Alright, next up: diesel."

Another can slid in front of Yuubari, and she opened it up and took a sniff, recoiling. "Eurgh, smells like sulfur," she groused, before pinching her nose and tilting it back. From the grimace on her face, it wasn't any more pleasant to drink.

"So, thoughts?" Yuubari said as she continued to analyze the results.

"Akagi and Musashi going down was definitely due to all the organic bits floating around," Yuubari answered. "This is actually better than the kerosene. Heavier. Still not quite as efficient."

Yuubari nodded. "That's about what I'm seeing here," she said. "Now for the really unconventional stuff. First up, firewood." A white-skinned log rolled onto the table. "Specifically, birch."

"Oh, this is gonna suck..." Yuubari muttered, grabbing the log and eyeing. Finally, she simply ripped a piece off, popped it in her mouth, and began chewing. Not ten seconds later she spat it out.

"What are you doing?!" her twin on the analysis demanded. "You're ruining the-!"

"I got threatened with a fireroom mutiny if I tried that again!" the light cruiser snapped. "Oil boilers don't like ash! Surprise!"

"Alright, alright, jeez!" Yuubari said, holding her hands up in warding. "Alright, we'll skip that and move onto the crude."

The can rolled out, but before Yuubari could start drinking, the door was flung open, admitting a panicked Naganami and a decidedly green Akebono.

"Help!" Naganami cried out. "I bet Akebono to drink crude oil and I didn't think she'd actually accept!"

"Please tell me it was light Brunei crude..." Yuubari groaned.

"Ah, no..." Naganami sheepishly replied. "Bakken shale."

"Hurk!"

"Glad I don't have to drink this, then," Yuubari muttered, pushing her can of Brunei crude away as her twin went to get the fuel pump.

~o~

Out on the open ocean, Desdiv 6 was running into problems of their own. Namely, Hibiki fainting on them. Thankfully, she was at least still floating.

"Ah, great, what happened this time?" Tenryuu grumbled as she examined her charges' unconscious form. "What the- fuel starvation?! What the hell?!"

"She said she was fine when we sortied, nanodesu!" Inazuma wailed.

"I know, she told me, too," the light cruiser muttered, rummaging in the destroyer's pockets. Finally, her hand gripped something, and pulled out a flask, which she turned over with a look of disgust. A thin sheen of liquid gathered on the rim, but nothing else. "I thought so."

"Is it her drinking problem again?" Ikazuchi asked.

"I know she hasn't been eating as much," Akatsuki mused. "I just thought she had a hidden snack stash she wasn't sharing with us."

"Is that why you rooted through my bookshelf, nanodesu?" Inazuma asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"... Sure, let's go with that."

"Well, that's probably what she thought she was doing with the vodka," Tenryuu explained, tossing the flask away. "But unlike what the internet thinks, we can't actually burn alcohol. The submarines' finicky diesels can't handle it and with our boilers it tends to evaporate before actually burning. So she counted the alcohol when she shouldn't have and then ran out." Grabbing the destroyer around the waist, she hefted her over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. "Alright, let's get out of here. And Ikazuchi, put that Sharpie away."

Both Inazuma and Akatsuki sent exasperated looks towards their sister as she hastily hid the permanent marker behind her back.


	502. Rule 1835

**Rule 1835. American Shipgirls are to no longer kidnap William Shatner in order to attempt to summon the Enterprise from Star Trek. The Canadians want him back.**

In a dark, candle-lit room far below San Diego, eight cloaked figures were seated in a circle on the concrete floor, though one of said figures was raised above the others by means of a plush cushion. Only only the lower half of their faces were visible, but power rolled off of them in waves, power that indicated that they were all shipgirls.

The generous figures visible even under the baggy cloaks didn't hurt, either.

"I call this meeting of the cult of Enterprise to order," the raised figure declared. "Sisters, do you have any reports?"

Two figures stood in response. The head nodded.

"Sister Salem, Sister Grenadier."

"Yoshino remains safe and happy under the vigilance of the great Yamato," Grenadier intoned. "It helps that after Enterprise demolished that Battleship Princess with her bare hands, the Abyssals don't seem inclined to try to grab her again."

"The Nip also remains quiet," Salem picked up, venom tinging her voice. "Though I suspect this merely a way to rejuvenate body and spirit, as she has not been seen at all out of sortie for two months. Her sisters grow worried, but even Kasagi seems unwilling to deal with the problem."

The head nodded. "Excellent news. You may be seated." As cruiser and submarine sat down again, the head swept her gaze over the small group again. "If there is no other news...?" Silence. "Very good. Then we may move on to the key item on the agenda. I have completed the ritual." A wave of excited murmuring swept through the cult, falling silent at a raised hand from the head. "The supplies have been gathered, and the ritual has been written. We await only Sister Volador with the catalyst."

"Which I've got!" a loud voice announced. Heads turned to another cloaked figure, a grinning mouth visible, as well as the snoring form of William Shatner over her shoulder. "One William Shatner, as ordered, Oriskany!"

"Sister Volador!" Oriskany snapped, causing the submarine to flinch. "While your enthusiasm is commendable, we have standards and decorum among us. Please exercise them."

"Ah, right, sorry, Sister Oriskany," a chastened Volador said. "Where should I place him?"

"In the very center of the circle."

As Volador complied, Oriskany hummed thoughtfully. "How did you accomplish this, Sister Volador? We were all expecting you to have a harder time of it."

"I didn't!" someone called out from the crowd.

"Quiet, Pickerel!" Oriskany snapped.

"Oh, it was easy," Volador explained as she carefully leaned the old man upright on the floor. "The right outfit, a rented hotel room, and a 'chance' encounter on the street was all it took." She grinned, a combination of lust and bliss. "The only hangup was that he's got a lot of stamina for a man his age, but... ah, that was a nice bonus..."

Some mutterings, glances, and blushes broke out among the gathered cultists at that, though they were silenced by Oriskany clearing her throat.

"Good work. Now, if you're quite done..."

Breaking out of her reverie, Volador scurried back into place. Oriskany nodded, and raised her arms.

"And now, we must begin the sacred ceremony-"

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to stop you guys here."

Oriskany froze, Taney stepping out in front of her to examine Shatner. "Good, he's just asleep."

"Ah- buh- how do- WHAT THE FUCK?!" one of the gathered shipgirls yelped. "How'd you find us?!"

"That... is a secret~," cooed a voice from behind them. Out stepped Hamilton, followed by Bibb, Ingham, Spencer, Campbell, and Duane. Seven high-endurance cutters. Oriskany did the only thing she could under the circumstances.

"We surrender," she sighed, raising her arms.

~o~

Admiral Holloway looked over the nine shipgirls in front of him. Heavy cruisers Salem and Northampton, the latter of the Baltimore class. Light cruisers Galveston, Roanoke, and Worcester. Submarines Volador, Pickerel, and Grenadier. And, of course, the ringleader, carrier Oriskany. The full nine members of the Cult of Enterprise; at least, the nine shipgirl members. The last estimates had put total human membership north of a thousand, and they were apparently going to apply to be an official religion soon.

"Dare I ask what the Cult of Enterprise wants with William Shatner?" he began. A spark of satisfaction shot through him at the paling of the shipgirls' faces.

"H-How did you know?!" Oriskany yelped.

Holloway simply grinned, and made a mental note to thank Aoba and Admiral Goto for forwarding their surveillance of the people who'd been surveilling Yoshino. "Answer the question, please."

Oriskany didn't answer, and neither did anyone else. Holloway, for his part, simply continued to sit and stare at them, serene smile on his face all the while. Finally, someone broke.

"We were, ah, trying to summon the starship Enterprise," Volador volunteered.

"Well, I'm afraid that won't be possible. The Canadians wants Mr. Shatner back." A ping from his computer interrupted him, and he glanced over to read the message. "Correction. They don't want him back, but Los Angeles is ready to howl. And besides, I doubt we'd be able to feed her."

All the shipgirls looked glum, so glum Holloway decided to throw them the bone he had planned.

"Don't worry, as stunts go this was fairly harmless," he said. "Just keep up the secrecy and I think I can let you keep worshipping. How does that sound?"

Base gossip would rumble for months on the reason Oriskany tackle-hugged Admiral Holloway out his window. No answers were forthcoming from the participants, sadly.


	503. Rule 1836

**Rule 1836. Just because HMCS Haida's old body technically has not been scrapped does not mean that she can summon it for use in battle.**

"But why can't I summon my hull?" Little Rock whined.

Newport News sighed and rolled her eyes, not stopping in her run around the base. "Because it just doesn't work, okay," she snapped. "I mean, what metaphysical muscle would you even flex for that?"

Little Rock opened her mouth to reply, and then closed it, deep in thought. The heavy cruiser took that opportunity to refocus on her jog, and dispense a little sage advice.

"Look, you really don't want to get hung up on this," she said. "It does things to a ship, it really does."

"What kind of things?" Little Rock asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Newport News opened her mouth to reply, but a sound drifted into her ears over the wind, a sound that made her grin. "Why don't I go show you?"

Swerving left, the heavy cruiser jogged towards the water, a confused Little Rock trailing in her wake. The noise grew louder the closer they got to the water, and by the time they reached the shore the noise was now a loud roar. The source, revealed when the two cruisers stopped at the railing, was Hornet, Haida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Belfast, standing out on the water screaming to the heavens.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"What... are they doing?" Little Rock loudly demanded.

"Trying to summon their hulls," Newport News replied at the same volume. "Every so often, they get together and just do this for, like, twenty minutes straight."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"By screaming and flexing?"

"Hey, you wanna tell those guys their methods are dumb, be my guest!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Little Rock looked over the assembled shipgirls. Two of the baddest ships in the US Navy, the oldest and baddest cruiser in the Royal Navy, a Canadian - and North Carolina.

"I'll pass, thank you," she said.

"Good idea," Newport News agreed, clapping the light cruiser on the back. "Well, I need to get back to my jog. See you around."

And with that, the heavy cruiser turned and left, leaving Little Rock still staring out over the water at the screaming shipgirls. Screaming, and flexing and posing, and no sign of their hulls at all. Sighing, the light cruiser pushed off and left. "This sucks..."

~o~

Out on the water, Haida stopped screaming in favor of massaging her aching throat. "This isn't working, guys," she croaked.

"No shit," Iowa growled, traces of her old persona resurfacing.

"We can't just give up!" North Carolina protested.

"And we're not going to," Belfast shot back. "Haida, I'm guessing you think we should try something different?"

"Yeah, but I have no idea what," the Canadian destroyer admitted.

No one had anything to say about that, and the gathered shipgirls dispersed, each mulling over the problem they confronted. Well, all except Hornet. She had a different problem.

"Alright, what's a new piece of plausible-sounding mystical bullshit to keep them distracted..." she muttered.


	504. Rule 1839

**Rule 1839. Making fun of USS** ** _Cowpens_** **' name is prohibited. We don't need more property damage.**

"Wow..." USS Cowpens breathed as she took in the Spanish coast. "This is actually pretty beautiful."

"I know, right? It's such a lovely country," Cabot agreed.

"Yeah..."

The light carriers fell silent as they cruised towards the coast, the city of Cádiz looming on the horizon. One was taking in the sights, the other was letting the feel of a country they'd spent most of their life in wash over her. Further observation, though, was cut short as two shipgirls pinged on their radar plots. Grinning, Cabot poured on some more speed, meeting the lead shipgirl on the water.

"Canarias!"

"Dedalo!"

The two shipgirls wrapped each other up in a tight hug, held it for a few seconds, and then separated. "Actually wearing a shirt this time, ya damn exhibitionist?" Cabot said, smiling brightly.

"Not all of us are prudes like you damn Yanks," Canarias shot back, smiling just as brightly.

As her sister and the Spanish cruiser descended into a back-and-forth, Cowpens skirted around them to meet the other Spanish shipgirl. "They usually do this?"

"Every time," the cruiser sighed in the way of the long-suffering. Then she stuck out her hand. "Baleares."

"USS Cowpens," Cowpens said, bracing and shaking.

"Battle of Cowpens, Revolutionary War, I'm guessing?" Baleares stated.

A grin spread over the carrier's face. "Exactly. You would not _believe_ how many foreign shipgirls don't pick that up." Her face darkened at the memories. "I swear to God, if I hear one more cattle pun..."

"People are stupid," Baleares nodded sagely.

"THE DRUMMER FOR DEF LEPPARD COULD THROW BETTER THAN YOU WITH ONE ARM TIED BEHIND HIS BACK!" they suddenly heard Canarias shout.

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Cabot roared, before stomping her foot and swearing. "Aw, broccoli!"

"Hey, don't feel too bad," the heavy cruiser smirked, throwing an arm around her friend's shoulders. "Be happy. It took me an hour to think up that one. Hey, guys, Dedalo's buying the drinks tonight!"

"Woo!"

"Oh, screw both of you!"

"Incest isn't wincest, sis, so no thanks!"

Descending into giggles, the quartet took another fifteen minutes to get to actually get to Cádiz. And while they would have liked to hit the nearest restaurant so that Cabot could treat them all to a good Spanish seafood meal, they were held up at the pier.

Specifically, by light cruiser Navarra in a bullfighter's uniform, sword and red cape and all. Behind her was destroyer Lepanto on a padded horse holding a bugle. Navarra snapped a finger, and the destroyer raised it to her lips and blew a specific series of notes.

Nearer to the water, Cabot and Baleares both slapped their hands to their foreheads with identical groans. "Goddammit, Navarra..."

"What? What's the problem?" Canarias asked, Cowpens just looking puzzled. She stopped looking puzzled when Navarra stepped forward and began waving the red cape in front of her. A growl worked its way out of her throat, and she leaned forward onto the balls of her feet, eyes fixed on not the cape but on Navarra, though admittedly it was a small distance.

Several tense seconds passed like this, and then Navarra sighed and lowered the cape. "C'mon, work with me here-"

That was as far as she got before Cowpens pushed off and dashed forward at an impressive clip. Distracted and off guard, Navarra couldn't stop Cowpens from slamming her head into the light cruiser's gut, nor from wrapping her arms around her waist, and definitely not from their momentum carrying them into the building behind.

As the stone crumbled, Canarias nodded sagely and looked to Cabot. "So, I definitely shouldn't call her Mighty Moo, then."

"Please don't," Baleares and Cabot said simultaneously, the former wincing as Cowpens powerbombed Navarra into the utility pipes below the street.


	505. Rule 1845

**Rule 1845. Yamato has a list of approved babysitters. Only Musashi, Fubuki, Hosho, Langley, Inazuma and Ikuzuchi are on the list. Those of you not on the list can appeal to get on it but Enterprise has said that in order to do so, you have to defeat her in combat. Without your rigging. While she has hers.**

"Argh!"

Pausing in sifting through her closet for the right outfit, Yamato poked her head out of the bathroom in time to see Enterprise hurl her phone against the bedcovers with considerable force. "What's wrong, honey?"

"No one can babysit!" Enterprise snapped. "I went through our entire approved list and got either a no or voicemail!"

That provoked a raised eyebrow from the battleship. "Really? Inazuma and Ikazuchi I could understand, but surely my sister is available."

"She got called in to take care of some fucking Battleship Princess that parked itself on Iwo Jima."

"Oh... what about Fubuki?"

"Voicemail, and according to Miyuki busy with studying for her promotion."

"... Hosho?"

"Entertaining the prime minister, last second change of schedule."

"And Langley's..."

"'In the zone', according to Titanic."

Sighing and resigning herself to picking her outfit last-minute, Yamato trudged over to one of the nightstand drawers. "I'll get the applicant list..."

~o~

"Where are we going?!" Murakumo (FLEET) shouted as she followed Murakumo down the halls of Yokosuka, along with what seemed like every other shipgirl on the base.

"To the water!" the snow-haired native destroyer replied. "Enterprise is holding the trial for status as approved babysitter of Yoshino!"

Murakumo (FLEET) blinked. "And people are watching this _why?"  
_  
Before Murakumo could answer her twin, they burst out onto the docks, and saw Enterprise standing out on the water, rigging out and bow in hand, while Nagato merely stood on the water sans rigging. They couldn't stop, though, not in the press of bodies, and were shoved forward until they were squashed against the railing, right next to Mutsu.

"Ara, hello, Murakumo and Murakumo," she said.

"Hello, Mutsu," both destroyers dutifully recited, before Murakumo (FLEET) said, "I still don't know why this is such a show."

"Well, Yamato and Enterprise have high standards for their babysitters," Mutsu explained. "They have to be trustworthy, and very strong. Besides the threat of Abyssals or Aso, Yoshino herself can overpower her parents when she wants to. So the final exam, if you will, is a one-on-one bout with Enterprise, in the condition you see."

"That... actually makes sense," Murakumo (FLEET) nodded. "How many times has Nagato tried this?"

"This will be her fourth attempt," Mutsu sighed, her gaze flat.

Out on the water, it seemed both shipgirls had passed the 'prep' stage and were now on the 'banter' stage.

"Why do you keep trying this, Nagato?" Enterprise called out. "You're weak! You can't beat me! And you know it!"

"Because I have a dream-" The battleship reached into her top, prompting Enterprise to tense in anticipation. "And I have a new advantage!"

Nagato's hand blurred, whipping out a... photograph. Everyone stared in dumbfounded shock as she stared at intently the photograph. Then she began to shake, music wafting out over the waters. Flickers of golden energy flashed to life and just as fast died around her, the shaking intensifying. And then, when the song reached its crescendo, Nagato threw her head back and roared.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

A golden, flame-like aura burst around Nagato, her hair flashing a golden blonde to rival Iowa, and those with good angles could see her hazel eyes flash into a cerulean blue. Oh, and she was floating six inches off the water.

"Impossible..." Mutsu breathed, wide-eyed and sweating as she watched the scene. "It actually exists?"

"What exists?!" both Murakumos demanded.

"The legendary Super Nagamon..."

"Still think I'm weak?" Nagato asked with an arrogant smirk, her usual alto even deeper.

Gritting her teeth, Enterprise drew her bow back and, in an impressive feat, sent her entire air wing aloft in thirty seconds. Avengers, Dauntlesses, and Hellcats rose in the air and then dove for Nagato, releasing their deadly payloads all at once. Fifteen torpedoes and no less than 91,000 lbs of bombs smashed into her, throwing up a huge cloud of smoke and water.

And when it cleared, Nagato was completely unscathed.

"I suppose that's all I could expect," Nagato said, slowly stepping towards Enterprise. "Oh, and just for future reference? This doesn't just increase my power, it increases my ferocity, too. A sort of... ecstatic state."

Vanishing from sight, she reappeared in a blink of an eye inches from Enterprise's face.

"Let me show you."

Foot slammed into gut, the audience wincing as Enterprise hacked up spit and only barely avoided vomiting. Several of the submarines watching from the water outright cringed; they could see the foot imprint the blow had left behind. Pulling back her foot, Nagato slammed an elbow into Enterprise's cheek bone, knocking her to the side, and then shifted position and slammed another kick into Enterprise's chest.

"Move!" someone yelped in the audience, but there was no time to get out of the way before the carrier slammed into the seawall, turning a good chunk of it into the consistency of chalk dust. Nagato could be seen out on the water, aura still blazing, slowly walking towards the impact point.

A hand popped out of the rubble and shoved a rock - and two squealing destroyers - away, Enterprise poking her head out. She had clearly seen better days; besides the concrete dust coating her, half her face was one big bruise and blood was streaming down her forehead.

"Alright, you win!" Enterprise shouted. "Go find Yamato, she'll have your instructions." Pushing her way out, she staggered on her feet and then hacked up a glob of blood. "And someone get me a damn repair bucket!"

The aura around Nagato abruptly died, leaving her back to normal, and she jumped back on land, a giddy smile on her face. "Yesyesyesyesyes!" she squealed as she dashed off into the distance.

Mutsu and the Murakumos, meanwhile, were busy examining something that had floated over towards them: the picture that started the transformation. It was a picture of Hoppo playing with some baby harp seals on an ice floe, and it was absurdly adorable.

"Ow, my pancreas!"

"Ow, my pancreas!"

"Ow, my glucose processor!"


	506. Rule 1846

**Rule 1846: All research into the relationship between ship girls and their hulls are to stop NOW or deal with Tenryuu!  
**  
Ooyodo calmly sipped at the cup of tea she'd just poured, fresh from the kettle. The day was a good one, with less paperwork than usual, which allowed her to simply relax with her tea for last hour. Unfortunately, the door creaking open to admit a worried-looking Tone clearly heralded the end of her relaxation.

"The Yuubaris are at another one of their projects," she reported.

"Oh, is it Tuesday already?" Ooyodo drawled, taking another sip of her tea.

"There have been _three explosions_ so far."

*PFFFFT!*

Hastily wiping away the tea she'd misted over her lips, Ooyodo began barking out orders. "Alright, I want containment and firefighting on their lab space at once! And call up every heavy shipgirl you can, I don't want a repeat of the Hexagram Incident!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Tone barked, saluting.

Naturally, it was right at that moment that there was an almighty crunching sound, followed shortly by a ringing cry of _"WHAAAAAT?!"_ , then a "DON'T LOOK!"

"Never mind, too late," the heavy cruiser remarked as Ooyodo began to thump her head on her desk.

~o~

Admiral Goto stared up at the 378-foot height of Hibiki. Well, more like 189-foot height, considering she was sitting down and trying very hard to keep her skirt flat. Next to her left foot were the two Yuubaries, sitting in seiza with Tenryuu loudly berating them. There were also a lot of sailors trying to avert their eyes, and Ashigara trying to calm a despondent Yonehara.

"Dare I ask what caused this?" he asked Ooyodo.

"Apparently, our resident mad scientists were looking into the relationship between shipgirls and their old hulls," his secretary ship answered. "Specifically, into whether shipgirls can summon said hulls into battle, at the request of one of the American cruisers."

"And that resulted in... this," Goto said, indicating the giant Hibiki, who had picked up a car and was carefully examining it.

"Apparently."

"Can she be changed back? This-" He indicated Hibiki's gargantuan form. "Is a bit of a tactical liability." A loud sob sounded from Yonehara's position. "Not to mention logistical."

"They'd better!" Tenryuu shouted. "Or I'm buying the biggest pair of American pumpkins I can get, and I'm shoving them up their asses! Whole, not diced!"

"WE'LL FIX IT!" the Yuubaris desperately howled.


	507. Rule 1852

**Rule 1852. No, Iowa. You're not allowed to modify remotes for uses other than what they were originally intended for.  
**  
Iowa stared intently at the package sitting on her bed. Long experience had taught her to be suspicious of mysterious packages with no sender. At best, they were from a mildly creepy secret admirer. At worst... well, it was hard to top the time the Abyssals had sent her a thermobaric explosive. That would have been a disaster had she not picked it up direct from the UPS bird that landed on North Island. All that that attempt earned was a ruined outfit, a lot of incapacitated sailors, and a black scorch mark on the tarmac.

On the other hand, she'd tossed it against a wall to no effect, so it couldn't be _that_ bad.

Biting the bullet, Iowa poked a hole in the cardboard and rendered the box asunder. Inside was a TV remote sitting on thin paper, as well as a note. _Have fun!_ , it said, with no indication as to the sender. Frowning, Iowa picked up the remote and turned it over. By all appearances, it was simply a normal TV remote.

"'Have fun', he says," the battleship pouted. "Stupid box! How am I supposed to have fun with this!"

Still, she tucked it into her belt. Maybe it did something.

At lunch, she found herself idly fiddling with it. Maybe a numbered button sequence would do something. Aiming the remote at a target - in this case, the destroyer tender Klondike, handing out her namesake ice cream bars to an eager crowd of tin cans - she tapped out 2, 2, and 0. Why those numbers, she couldn't say.

The effect was immediate: Klondike froze, and when one of the destroyers, clad in a sailor top, stepped forward, she shrieked like an Irish banshee, grabbed the destroyer, and ripped the top off, then shredded it into little scraps of cloth, and then manifested her 5" gun and fired four high-explosive rounds into the shreds, obliterating them. That done, she stood up, murder in her eyes as she eyed the sailor tops of the destroyers around her.

And then Iowa tapped 'power' on the remote.

Immediately, Klondike went back to normal, and pulled out a blanket for the destroyer whose top she'd torn off, apologizing profusely with words and Klondike bars all the while. And Iowa, for her part, was now eyeing the remote with considerably more appreciation. Appreciation that quickly drew the attention of New Jersey and Missouri, sadly.

"Did you do that, Iowa?" the latter asked frigidly. New Jersey, meanwhile, looked outright murderous.

"Hey, I didn't know that sequence would do that!" Iowa protested.

New Jersey mulled that over, and then nodded and sat back. "Checks out."

"No, it does _not_ check out!" Missouri snapped. "What you did was cruel, and you should be ashamed of yourself, Iowa! I had hoped that you'd changed, but clearly I-"

3, 3, and 0 were tapped out on the remote, and Missouri froze in place. Blinking, Wisconsin leaned over and waved a hand in front of her face, getting no reaction. "Did you just pause Mo?"

"I have no idea _what_ I just did," Iowa answered, scowling cutely at the remote. "This thing didn't come with an instruction manual."

Jersey's hand, meet Jersey's face. "Dammit, sis, the ditzy blonde thing is supposed to be an _act_."

~o~

Iowa grinned as the Battleship Princess targeting her little task group reached visual range. Pulling the remote from her belt and aiming it at the Abyssal, she tapped out 1, 0, and 9. Blinking, the Battleship Princess turned around and began firing at the Abyssals behind.

"I love this thing..." she breathed.

~o~

Admiral Holloway groaned and held his head in his hands. It had been one hell of a week; between Missouri suddenly going into a _stupidly_ in-depth question-and-answer on her porn collection, Iowa somehow ordering a visiting Admiral to bring her coffee - and _succeeding_ \- a Battleship Princess offering her services in under Iowa, several spontaneous musical numbers, and God knows _what_ else that he hadn't had to handle personally, he was quite thoroughly frazzled. And the common denominator?

Iowa.

Who was now sitting in front of his desk looking extremely smug.

"And really, how can I have done any of this?" Iowa asked, and damn if it wasn't the toughest question to answer. At least, it had been. Snapping his fingers, he was gratified to see Wisconsin walk in, looking quite confident.

"Here's the device," she said, tossing a TV remote onto his desk, an action that caused the blood to evacuate Iowa's face. "Don't ask me how it works, but it does. Oh, and just FYI, Coral Sea is only going to be speaking in farts and chicken clucks for the next week. Unfortunately, I also haven't had any luck figuring out who made it. SoDak and Phoenix vigorously denied any responsibility, and I believe them. This is a little mean-spirited for their usual fare."

"I'd pay good money to hear that..." Holloway sighed happily.

"I have a recording."

"Wisconsin, you are now officially my favorite shipgirl in the fleet."

"Um..."

Holloway turned to Iowa with a kindly smile, which for some reason only caused the battleship to sweat more. "Oh, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you. In fact, I have something very special in mind for you..."

"Meep."


	508. Rule 1857

**Rule 1857. Whoever posted that picture of Iowa on Tumblr is to remove it and report to the admiral.**

"Oh my~"

Iowa stared at the picture filling up most of her computer screen. Even by _her_ standards, that was a lewd as hell picture. Of her. Whoever this xX_Yukiwa was, they were a very talented artist. The battleship's finger twitched to scroll down.

"What are you looking at that provoked _that_ reaction?" a grinning Wisconsin said as she poked her head over the back of the chair Iowa was sitting. Her eyes widened as she took in the picture, and a thin trickle of blood leaked from her nose. "O-Oh. Yeah, that'd do it," she muttered, hastily wiping away the line of blood.

"I know, right?" Iowa said, manipulating her touchpad to zoom in on a... certain part of the picture's anatomy. "Look, they even got these details right! Lucky guess, or am I being watched?"

"HURK!"

Blinking, Iowa leaned over the back of her chair to see Wisconsin hunched over, clutching her mouth with blood leaking out. "Ah! Wisky, are you okay?! Are you dying?!"

"No, I'm not okay, but no, I'm also not dying," was Wisconsin's muffled reply. "Just, uh, don't show me that picture again, okay?"

"What picture?"

"Oh, hey, Jersey!" Iowa chirped, spinning her laptop around. "Check this out!"

Jersey immediately blanched and flinched back, covering her eyes. "Dammit, sis, I don't want to have to look at nude pictures of you!"

"Even if they're well-drawn?"

 _"Especially_ if they're well-drawn!"

"Aww... oh well," Iowa sighed. "Don't worry, it's not on screen anymore."

Lowering her hands, Jersey opened her eyes a fraction - and immediately slammed them shut again. "Dammit!"

Iowa descended into peals of laughter, even Wisconsin getting in a few raw chuckles round the blood she was still clearing out of her throat. Of course, all that noise was bound to attract attention.

"What is going on here?"

Though whether it was the _wrong_ sort of attention was a matter of debate. There stood Missouri, looking her usual severe self. And then she saw Wisconsin, kneeling on the floor in a pool of blood and more of the crimson liquid drying on her knees and face, and it fell into concern. "Wisky, what happened?"

Wisconsin opened her mouth to answer, but Iowa beat her to the punch by wheeling her laptop around. "She saw this picture, Mo!"

"Don't look!" Jersey and Wisconsin both shouted, but it was too late: Missouri had seen it. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open - and then it clicked shut, followed by grinding of teeth as Missouri shifted to thunderous rage.

"Who drew this... this _filth?!"_ she demanded.

"The artist hasn't shared anything on their page," Iowa replied, looking confused. "Also, I'm completely fine with this. Just putting that out there."

"I am not," Missouri sniffed. "And you've shown time and again, Iowa, that you are not the best judge of sound behavior."

"She's got you there," New Jersey pointed out. "But I'm kinda surprised you have a problem with this, Mo. We know about your, uh, collection, and this is downright tame. Somehow."

"This is different," Missouri countered. "I don't _know_ any of the subjects in my- HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?!"

"I helped build it, remember?" Iowa said, raising her hand.

That drew a blush on Missouri's cheeks, but she pressed onward. _"Regardless,_ I don't know those women. I know you, Iowa. And that means I cannot allow your virtue to be sullied like this."

"But I don't have any virtue to sully."/"But she doesn't have any virtue to sully."

"It's the principle of the matter!"


	509. Rule 1859

**Rule 1859: You may not threaten any of the Australian Shipgirls with American Possums.**

When both the Australian and American Canberras became online penpals, no one was really surprised. When they became actual good friends, it was only a mild surprise. After all, both were friendly girls, and the Australian Canberra was decidedly less... crazy than her fellow Aussie cruisers.

When USS Canberra up and packed for a two-week trip to Australia, then everyone was surprised. But no on objected. Inter-navy friendship was always encouraged.

"Honestly, it reminds me of California, climate-wise," USS Canberra said as she sat on HMAS Canberra's bed, munching on cookies. "And Australians remind me a lot more of Americans than the Brits I've met. Accent aside."

"Yeah. I was surprised at the change, when I was summoned, but thinking back it makes sense," HMAS Canberra agreed. "The war must have been a wake-up call to the government that Britain's time was up and it was time to get hitched to the Great Power that actually _helped us_ during the war."

A sound of disturbed foliage from the open window prompted both girls to flinch in surprise, and HMAS Canberra peeked out the window. "Oh, good, it's just a possum," she said, sighing in relief.

In contrast, USS Canberra's eyes immediately widened, and she twitched towards the window. "CLOSE THE WINDOW RIGHT GODDAMN NOW!" she shouted.

"Why would I close it? It's just a possum," HMAS Canberra replied, her brows drawn into a confused frown.

"Exactly! It's a possum! So close the window before it gets in!"

HMAS Canberra's eyes widened into comical incomprehension. "How can you be scared of such a cute critter?"

In almost direct opposition, USS Canberra's eyes narrowed and she scooted none-too-discretely away from the other heavy cruiser. "Dammit, and here I thought you were the sane one!"

Before the situation could devolve any further, a chittering noise came from the window, and both shipgirls turned to see a possum in the window. USS Canberra immediately noticed the difference: this animal looked like a cross between a mouse and a grey squirrel, with smooth fur and large, dark eyes.

"Is... Is that a possum?" she breathed.

"Yeah!" HMAS Canberra chirped. "Adorable, aren't they? Some people even own them as pets."

"Well, now I see why you reacted like that," USS Canberra said apologetically. Pulling out her phone, she began tapping at the screen, saying, "Here's what an American possum looks like.", followed by a muttered, "The one marsupial we _do_ have and it's _this_ thing..."

HMAS Canberra waited patiently as her American friend finished finding what she was looking for, and took the phone when it was offered. She immediately recoiled at the sight of the snarling, sharp-toothed, rat-like _thing_ on the screen. "W-What is that thing?!"

"That," USS Canberra smugly answered. "Is an American possum."

"It's like Satan swallowed a rat and the it crawled out of his asshole!"

"Pretty good description of those little monsters."


	510. Rule 1865

**Rule 1865. No, bringing your rigging to a VA facility will not get them to work faster. The veterans appreciate the sentiment, but it's just not going to work.**

"This is a bad idea!" San Juan wailed as she tried to holder sister back, a trench in the asphalt behind her showing exactly how effective she was being at the task.

"Look at how many fucks I give!" San Diego snarled as she stomped forward, each step shattering the pavement. "This is a travesty! An outrage! An abomination! The men who fought and bled for this country deserve better than this!"

"Yes, _but t_ _here are better ways to do this!"  
_  
Regardless of her sister's continued resistance, San Diego stomped through the parking lot, through the doors of the VA facility, and into the lobby, glass strewn about the floor from the shattered automatic door. All the staff present were immediately frozen in fear, partially from the entrance but mostly due to sixteen barrels of 5" death swiveling about on their base rings, all attached to a very, very angry shipgirl.

But the staff weren't the only ones present. An old man, his hair white and wispy, his face dotted with liver spots, stood up from one of the chairs lining the wall and shuffled up towards them, IV rack clutched in one hand. No one dared speak, the sound of his slippers on the linoleum floor the only sound besides the ever-present hum of air conditioning.

"You're here about the wait times, aren't you, Sandy?" he said, his voice creaky but still stout.

"Ah, Mr. Kupp..." one of the secretaries tried.

"Oh, don't worry about me," the newly named old man said, waving dismissively. "She won't hurt me. And I have a feeling she wouldn't have hurt all of you kind people."

"Ah, no, I wouldn't have," San Diego got out, feeling decidedly nonplussed by this. "And to answer your question, yes, I am. It's a-!"

"Travesty of the highest order, yes, yes, I can watch the news," Mr. Kupp said, a little impatiently. "I understand you're angry, Sandy, but please don't take your anger out on these poor young men and women. They do their best, but the whole system is underfunded and understaffed, and many of them were threatened into cooking the books."

"Underfunded and understaffed, huh?" San Diego mused. "That makes sense... alright. Thanks for setting me straight, Mr. Kupp."

"It was my pleasure."

San Diego turned to leave, but paused on the shattered glass before looking back at Mr. Kupp. "By the way, you seem... familiar. And that nickname..."

A proud, sunny smile spread over Mr. Kupp's face. "My father served with you during World War II!" he said cheerfully. "Loved you to pieces, he did, told me every story he had."

A smile of her own spread San Diego's lips, and she gave a salute that the old man return. As she turned to actually leave this time, San Juan darted into view and mouthed 'Thank you' to Mr. Kupp, who sent a wink her way. And with that, the two shipgirls were gone and everyone in the VA hospital could unclench their assholes.

San Juan, though, still had a job to do.

"So, what next?" she asked. "I know you, you're not going to just drop this."

"Well, you're right about that," San Diego said. "I need to talk to the Admiral about leave, and then get a plane ticket to DC. And I need a good speechwriter, too."

A smile that would make a Great White quaver spread over San Juan's face. "I recommend Hiei. She can get some seriously good invective going when she wants to."

~o~

General James Mattis, former US Marine and current Secretary of Defense, couldn't hide the smile he had on his face as he watched USS San Diego stand in front of the Capitol building, armed with a megaphone, prodigious lung capacity, and enough piss and vinegar for an entire Marine Expeditionary Force.

"- and then, I will make you _eat_ the salsa!"

The cruiser had been screaming at the Capitol for a solid fifteen minutes, decrying the state of the VHA in between insults to every single member of Congress. He was especially fond of her calling Ted Cruz 'An odious specimen not fit to be filtered by a jellyfish'. He'd have to remember that for the next budget committee.

"- don't see the leaders of the greatest country on Earth! I see mud, and clay, shaped by a five-year-old and animated by the most incompetent wizard in history! Or worse, Gilderoy Lockheart!"

"Popcorn?"

Taking the small tub from former president Barack Obama, who'd had the good fortune to be in Washington at the time, Mattis popped a kernel into his mouth. "Don't mind if I do."


	511. Rule 1869

**Rule 1869. The overly top-heaviness of the Hatsuharu-class has been fixed. Stop spreading rumors that they've got Ushio-sized stacks hidden underneath some very tight sarashi.**

Harder crept through the shrubbery of Yokosuka, heading for one of the bathhouses on base. Not the repair docks, those were locked down tighter than a dragon's hoard, but normal bathhouses without an repair properties. And as he did so, he prayed like mad that his contact wasn't bullshitting him.

Finally reaching one of the open windows, venting steam, he leaned against the wall and listened. Laughter and chatter drifted out: men, women, and children, and most important of all, Hatsuharu's regal and somewhat archaic but very warm laughter.

 _'Jackpot.'  
_  
Levering himself up to the window, he stared in, steam wafting over her. Steam that was also obscuring any sight beyond a few feet.

"Damn!"

"What are you doing?"

Harder desperately clamped down the shriek that threatened to tear out of her throat, which came out as a strangled whine, and dropped to the ground in a combat stance, facing Iku. "How did you find me?"

"My porno sense was tingling," the lewdmarine answered, her frown still in place. "Answer the question, please, or the hilarity of seeing everyone beat up on you will overwhelm my curiosity."

That was enough to convince Harder, who shuddered at the memory of the last shipgirl beatdown she'd gotten. "Well, there's this rumor going around about the Hatsuharu class' top-heaviness-"

"Seriously?" Iku interrupted, her frown shifting into an outright scowl. "Swear to God, when I find who started that rumor... they fixed that problem already, dammit! There's nothing to hide!"

"So, they're not hiding Ushio-sized stacks under tight Sarashi?" Harder confirmed.

"No!"

There was a long, awkward silence.

"How did you... confirm?" Harder asked, trepidation coloring her voice.

"That's not important right now!" Iku hastily deflected. "What is important is that the rumor is just that - a rumor. So you don't need to break into the bathhouse."

"And why do you care, you lewdmarine?"

"Because I have, through long, bitter, painful experience, learned that there is a time and a place for lewdness," Iku replied, her expression distant. "And this ain't it."

Another awkward silence. "This is because Kongo beat you up that one time, isn't it."

Instantly, Iku was curled up on the ground, shivering like mad and muttering, "Boobies are supposed to be squishy... not breakable..."

Raising an eyebrow, Harder had no time to ask what was wrong, as a head topped with platinum blonde hair poked out of the window she had been looking through just minutes before. Ro-500 'Yuu' glanced out, then spotted Harder, and then the insensate Iku lying on the ground. Her eyes hardened, and before Harder could so much as shout 'Uncle!' the hand that wasn't holding her towel up had flashed out and grabbed the American submarine by her ear.

"What did you do to Iku?!" she demanded.

"Ow, leggo!" Harder yelped. "The stupid lewdmarine did that to herself! And good riddance! She interrupted my look in the window!"

The American realized her mistake once it left her mouth and clamped her hands tight over the offending orifice, but it was too late. Yuu's expression, already annoyed, darkened frightfully. Oddly, the only thing she did was suck in a breath and-

"This is gonna suck..." Harder groaned.

"KYAAAAAAAHHHH! PEEPER!"


	512. Rule 1874

**Rule 1874. Any English-speaking ship girls are to stop arguing about which English is better.**

"Hey! Who ate the last cookie?!" came a shout from one of the small kitchenettes scattered around the Norfolk Naval Base.

"The last _what_?" a visiting HMS Scorpion called back.

USS Keppler poked her head out, looking annoyed. "These cookies!" This comment was accompanied by her holding up a package of shortbread cookies.

"Oh, you meant the biscuits," Scorpion nodded sagely, turning back to her e-reader. "Yeah, I took the last one. You should've spoken up when I asked."

"They're cookies, not biscuits, dammit!" Keppler ranted. "Next time, tell me you're going to eat _cookies_ instead of _biscuits_ when you're going for the last one! Ugh, why can't you guys just speak American like a normal person?"

A chill descended on the room, and Scorpion calmly switched off her e-reader and placed it on the couch. Sadly, it lacked the impact of snapping a normal book shut. "What. Did. You. Say?" she growled.

"You hard of hearing or something? I said, 'why can't you guys just speak American like a normal person'!" Keppler replied. "Why do you guys even have a separate language, anyway? They sound almost the same. Is it really that hard to speak American?"

"It's. English."

Keppler frowned, looking adorably confused. "What?"

"The language. Is. English," Scorpion got out through gritted teeth, standing and glaring at the American destroyer. "There is no such _thing_ as 'American'. It's all English, you fucking _donkey_."

"Hey, you take that back!" Keppler demanded.

"No, you're right," Scorpion conceded, which got a triumphant grin out of her opponent. "Donkeys are useful, intelligent creatures. Comparing you to them is an insult to their hard-working loyalty."

So much for the triumphant grin.

"Die!" Keppler howled, any semblance of coherence gone. And on a normal day, Keppler would have been able to take Scorpion through the power of carrying 5" guns to Scorpion's 4".

This was not a normal day. Said victory depended on the American destroyer exercising a modicum of tactical competency. As she'd instead decided to leap at the British destroyer, that tactical competency was entirely absent. Which, in turn, led to Scorpion grabbing her around the head and then slamming her to the floor, the force of the impact knocking her unconscious.

"Bloody Americans..." Scorpion groused, sitting on the couch and going back to her e-reader.

~o~

"Look, Kongo," USS Wright groaned, hands darting up to massage her temples. "All I'm asking is that you write normal English with your reports. Not..." She indicated the report in her hand. "Whatever pidgin this is."

The Japanese battleship in question frowned, then flashed a thumbs-up. "Is fine! You understand, yes?"

"But it's _wrong!"_ Wright insisted. Holding up the report, she indicated a spot. "See this sentence? It's grammatically incorrect. Egregiously so."

"No, it's fine," Kongo waved dismissively.

"No, it's not."

"It's _fine._ "

"No, it's-"

"Look, Wright, let me explain something to you," Kongo interrupted, her Engrish accent falling away for a classically British one. "The language is English. _I_ am English. Therefore, mine is the opinion which matters, you colonial heathen."

"How very _French_ of you," Wright drawled.

Kongo immediately paled, and looked frantically around her. "Shit. Okay, I take it back. Don't tell any of the Britbotes I said that, okay?" Reaching out, she grabbed the report. "Lemme just clean that up for you."

"Thank you, Kongo," Wright replied, smiling sunnily.


	513. Rule 1877

**Rule 1877. While the Miami police department and the DEA appreciate the help HMS Revenge is now banned from Florida and Central America.  
**  
"- so then I got dat bitch a mermaid. Bitches love mermaids."

Around her, a small crowd of people, each sporting a glass of some sort of hard drink, listened with rapt attention, their attention pointedly _not_ on the third-rate amateur rapper attempting to freestyle on the stage of the nightclub they were in. That was deliberate on Revenge's part; a demonstration that even without rapping she had more charisma than this scrub.

"But what dat bitch didn't know was dat th' mermaid... get this... wasn't no mermaid! I owed Thetis a buncha drinks t'get her to wear dat outfit, but it was worth it for da look on dat bitch-ass Abyssal's face when she suddenly ate eight torpedoes up her ass!"

Revenge grinned as the crowd burst into laughter and congratulation, and she signaled the bar. "'Nother round'a drinks for these fine folks!" The whooping and hollering intensified, and the battleship leaned back in her chair as the crowd dispersed for a bit. Ah, life was good. Especially when her reputation got her into nightclubs for free. Or, on one memorable occasion, paid her just to show up.

Scanning over the club, she made a mental note to come back sometime. The decor was nice, the drinks better, the service impeccable - at that, she paused her line of thought to slip a five to the waitress that brought her a fresh drink - where was she? Oh, right, and the music was good. When it wasn't being occupied by some two-bit teenager with delusions of talent who probably thought he could produce the next "Juju on that Beat" or something. Ha! Too bad for him Vine, promoter of terrible rap songs extraordinaire, was dead.

Shaking her head, Revenge resumed her scanning of the club, and her eyes fell on a group of men furtively trying to sneak out the back. As she watched, brows furrowed in confusion, a small plastic bag fell out of one of the men's pockets. In it was an odd white substance, one that Revenge recognized and did not like.

Her brows now furrowed in something other than curiosity, Revenge stood and shoved her way through the crowd, her battleship bulk easily parting the grinding bodies. Throwing the doors open, she found herself confronted by the three men, guns pointed at her face.

"Put those things away, before ya go an' hurt yoselves," Revenge admonished. "Now, jus' hand over da goods, and-"

Whether it was panic or stupidity that fired the neurons, one of the men made the monumentally stupid decision to pull the trigger. The bullet sprang from the pistol, traveled the distance between them in a matter of seconds - and then flattened itself on the battleship's forehead.

"Right," Revenge said, her voice falling back into a classic British accent. "I was gonna be nice about this..."

In a flash, two of the men were out cold, and the last was pinned against the wall, looking ready to wet his pants. Revenge rummaged in his pocket, and pulled out a baggie and two pill bottles. Cocaine, and opiates. "I don't like drugs," she said, conversational. "Really don't like 'em. But hey, you guys look like users, not dealers. So just tell me where I can find more, and I'll let you go."

The man, surprisingly, clammed up, and from the glare in his eyes it was from defiance rather than fear. Any other time, and Revenge would have been mildly impressed. Now, it just made her annoyed.

"I'm not asking you," she growled, reaching down and grasping the man's balls just hard enough for pressure. His eyes widened fearfully. "I'm telling you. Tell me where I can find your dealer. Or... squish!"

He talked.

~o~

Revenge eyed the building the druggie had directed her to. It was obvious no normal people lived there: the thing was kitted out like a fortress, and her optics had spotted a number of men with _very_ illegal firearms show up in a variety of vehicles behind the building before filing in. She grinned; this was going to be _fun_. Stepping back from the ledge she'd been watching from, she walked back to the other side of the roof, and then took off in a dead sprint before pushing down with all the horsepower her legs could muster.

And then.. she jumped.

The roof below her exploded into fragments in accordance with the requirements of Newton's Third Law, her body soaring in an arc towards the other building. Her landing was even more catastrophic, due to her applying her full mass as she fell. The roof was simply unable to hold up to over 30,000 tons of shipgirl landing on it. Neither did any of the floors below it, and by the time she'd figured out what happened Revenge had to stop on the ground floor.

"Ah, bloody hell," she grumbled as she gave a chunk of wood a hearty kick. "Now how am I gonna get back up there?"

As if on cue, several men brandishing assault rifles came around the nearest corner.

"Ne~ver mind!" Revenge sang. "I'll just ask _you_!"

~o~

Agent Simms, DEA, was a newbie to the agency, only a member for six months. But even he knew that this case was unusual, possibly unprecedented. In a three-day reign of terror, someone - and yes, it was just one person, as crazy as it seemed - had rampaged through a large chunk of Miami's drug distribution network, and incidentally also a large number of ongoing cases. Upper leadership was hopping mad, and the Miami PD wasn't much happier. And that was _before_ the mystery woman had interfered with a Coast Guard interdiction.

The problem, of course, was that they were dealing with a woman who had torn apart some pretty major crime rings, many lavishly equipped, with nary a drop of blood for forensics to find. Faced with that, the Miami PD had gratefully let the case be kicked upstairs to the Feds.

And that led to him standing on the deck of a Coast Guard vessel in the tropical sun off the coast of Honduras getting bitten by mosquitos as his senior partner, Agent Collins, watched something going on on the shore. Something that involved a lot of yelling, splintering wood, and gunfire.

"So, uh, sir, what's going on over there?" he asked, a nervous quaver to his voice.

"That, rookie, is a shipgirl going to town on the home base of one of the biggest drug lords in Central America," Agent Collins said, almost reverentially. "And damn if it isn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Agent Simms nodded. That did sound pretty, and probably sounded even better to a thirty-year veteran like Collins. Though...

"State of Florida's still going to ban her, I'm guessing?"

"Yup."


	514. Rule 1884

**Rule 1884. Under no circumstances are Shipgirls allowed anywhere near MRI machines.  
**  
"And then this is an MRI machine."

Britannic nodded and moved to inspect the ring-shaped machine, the technician showing her around standing quietly off to the side. The hospital ship was visiting a modern hospital to get caught up on the latest technological goodies, pending enrollment in an actual residency to get completely up to speed.

"Fascinating," she says. "So, as I understand it, this using magnetic energy to induce hydrogen atoms to emit radio waves and thus act as a radar return?"

"That's the gist, yes," the technician nodded.

"Fascinating! And certainly safer than X-rays, from what I've read about the effects of radiation," Britannic mused. "Demonstration time, then?"

At the nod of the technician's head, they bustled into the control room, a nurse wheeling in an actual patient. Britannic watched in rapt attention as the technician ran through the startup sequence, the machine humming to life. Then it began to rattle.

"Uh, is it supposed to be doing that?" she wondered.

"Doing what?" the technician asked, looking up just as the machines power peaked - and also right as it began to shake out of its bolts. "Oh shit!" Diving for the off button wouldn't do any good; instead, he ducked for cover, noting in his peripheral vision the nurse yanking the patient out of the machine. And right in time, too as the MRI leapt out of its housing straight for where he and Britannic were standing. He ducked down, losing sight, and then there was an almighty crash.

Finally, the technician mustered the courage to open his eyes. He stood, shattered plaster and glass falling off of him, probably from the shattered window that had once separated the machine from the operating room. Also, the room was missing the MRI machine. Luckily, as he turned his head he damn near smacked his forehead on the thing, as it was sticking out from the back wall. And... were those legs under the other end?

As he watched, the machine shifted, then was shoved back, a battered and very annoyed Britannic stomping back in from the hole in the wall she'd created. "Fucking magnet machine!" she snapped, kicking the MRI and leaving a dent.

The technician, putting two and two together, stared at the MRI, then at Britannic, then the MRI again. "Magnets don't work like that," he said, just a tad hysterically.

"Sparkly Magical Shipgirl Bullshit," was Britannic's retort. "Sometimes it doesn't work in our favor."


	515. Rule 1888

**Rule 1888. The construction of shrink rays and the like is prohibited.**

"Hey, what's this?"

Glancing over her shoulder, Yuubari said, "Be careful with that thing." Warning given, she turned back to her work, carefully attempting to place a small nut with a pair of tweezers.

"But what is it, exactly? I'm pretty sure it's not another death ray."

The interruption caused her had to twitch, the tweezers opening and dumping the nut on the table. Sighing, she turned to her twin, who was examining the 50s-esque ray gun that had caught her attention. "Will you shut up if I tell you?"

Yuubari pouted, looking hurt, but Yuubari was well immune to such antics. They were the same person, after all, even if different experiences were starting to create divergent character development. As such, the stonewalling finally led her twin to throw up her hands. "Yes, fine. Just tell me already."

"Alright. You remember the whole... mess with Hibiki going ship-size?"

Yuubari nodded. They'd been responsible for that, after all. "Yeah. I came up with the ritual that reversed it, if I recall."

"You did," Yuubari agreed. "And while you were doing that, I was coming up with a backup plan. You're looking at it."

"Okay..." the light cruiser said slowly. "But that still doesn't tell me _what_ it is."

"Come on, use that brain for something other than stuffing for your skull-space," she admonished, getting an annoyed glare. "A backup plan for a giant Hibiki, in the form of a ray gun. What do you think it is?"

Wordlessly, Yuubari aimed the ray gun at a spare piece of sheet metal, pulling the trigger. A crackling beam shot out, briefly enveloping the metal before winking out, a sheet the size of a postage stamp remaining.

"You actually built a shrink ray," Yuubari breathed in shock. Slowly and with great care, she put it back on the workbench. "You have a way to reverse the effects, right?"

"Theoretically."

"Well, _that's_ reassuring..."

~o~

Despite the bout of existential terror, both of Yokosuka's resident mad scientists managed to put the idea of the shrink ray behind them. At least, for a week, before they got a knock at their door.

"Hello?" one of the Yuubaris said as she opened the door, blinking in surprise at the figure standing there. "Lieutenant Kamata? What's up?"

"Call me Noriko, please," the nervous-looking officer said, shuffling on her feet. "Um, well, I... need your help with something."

"Sure. What's up?"

"W-Well... you see... the things is..." The mousy woman's blush intensified. "We... Iku and I... might have swiped your shrink ray and used it for... things. Bedroom things."

Too confused to be angry, Yuubari wondered, "What kind of bedroom things could you use that fo- Oh." Her eyes widened, and a dusting of red colored her cheeks. _"Oh._ Uh... how was it?"

"Surprisingly good..." Lieutenant Kamata said wistfully, before shaking her head. "But that's not important! What's important is-"

"This shit isn't reversing!"

Yuubari raised an eyebrow as a tiny nude Iku poked her head out from between Lieutenant Kamata's breasts. "Having fun?"

"Well, yeah," the submarine admitted in a squeaky helium voice. "But I want to get back to fighting, dammit!"

"I see..." Yuubari said, before leaning and looking back into their lab. "Yo, Yuubari, y'know your theoretical ideas for reversing the shrink ray?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, they'd better stop being theoretical, and fast!"

"Are you fucking _serious?!"_ This last was accompanied by the sounds of mad scrambling.

"Don't worry, she'll get it done," Yuubari assured the two still at the door. "But just in case, could you still bring the-"

"Yo, Yuubari," a grumpy Tenryuu groused as she stepped into sight. Desdiv 6 huddled on her shoulders, clutching her neck. "Mind telling me why my destroyers are now all three inches tall?"


	516. Rule 1892

**Rule 1892. Yes, the sword Fubuki has in her room is a tsukumogami. No, you may hire it to get payback against another ship girl.**

 _Several months ago  
_  
"HAPPY LAUNCH DAY, FUBUKI!"

Fubuki blinked, gaping openly at the confetti landing around her. Or perhaps the large cake festooned with burning candles on the table in front of her. Or, perhaps, the twelve of her sisters currently summoned gathered in front of her, looking pleased.

"I- bwuh- huh?"

"Guys, I think we broke her!" Murakumo announced, grinning. A wave of giggling and tittering swept through the room, a wave that swept up Fubuki as well after a few seconds.

"Thank you, all of you," she said once the laughter died down, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Hey, no problem for our big sister," Miyuki stated as she stepped up and clapped Fubuki on the shoulder. "We even all pitched in to get your present. So! Cake or present first?"

"Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!"

"I think my sisters have spoken," Fubuki said over the sound of pounding fists. "Cake first!"

The chant turned into a cheer, Murakumo produced a kitchen knife from... somewhere, Fubuki blew out the candles to a rousing and only mildly off-key rendition of 'Happy Birthday', and the cake (vanilla with chocolate frosting, happily cooked by Mamiya) was cut up and devoured in short order. And that's not counting Hatsuyuki, who instead of using a fork just stuffed the cake, paper plate and all, into her mouth and swallowed. But now, it was time for the present. The destroyers gathered on the nearest couch, Fubuki dead center, while Oboro retrieved the package.

It was long, thin, and messily wrapped up in about twice the paper and four times the scotch tape it needed. It was also thoroughly exciting to Fubuki. Hardly had it left Oboro's hand when the destroyer dutifully began pulling apart the wrapping paper at the seams. A process that was apparently too slow for some of her sisters.

"Argh, this is taking to long!" Uranami snapped, plucking the package out of Fubuki's hands and tearing off the wrapping paper. "There! Now open the damn package already!"

Giggling, Fubuki gripped the cardboard package and yanked it open in one fluid motion. And upon seeing the contents her eyes widened, tears welling at the corners.

Inside was a sheathed sword, outwardly resembling a classic katana with wood-lined sheath. There were key differences, though: the twin brass straps on the sheath holding loops to attach to a belt, and a colored tassel on the end of the hilt. And as Fubuki unsheathed it, one more difference was made plain: a plain, stamped sheet steel blade instead of the classic folded blade. This was a Kaiguntō, one of the mass-produced swords the Imperial Japanese Navy had made for its officers. And more importantly, Fubuki could feel a deep, familiar connection to the blade.

"Shizuo..." she breathed, tears beginning to stream down her eyes. "H-How did you-"

"Did you really think we'd missed you looking at this sword whenever we walked by that antique shop?" Shirayuki softly answered. "We're still not sure how it ended up there, but once Hatsuyuki, Murakumo, and I walked in we knew what it was."

"And after that... well, there wasn't any other choice for your present," Hatsuyuki finished, with the most words some of her sisters had ever heard her say in one sitting.

Sniffing, Fubuki wiped her eyes and gave a teary but sunny smile to her sisters. "Thank you. All of you. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"I think they know better than you think, 'Buki."

The entire room froze, the mood crashing harder than a Zero pumped full of .50 BMG. All eyes shot to the sword - or rather, to the black-haired, beuniformed, translucent young man now sticking out of it, his legs melding near-seamlessly into the sword. And then, suddenly, every single 5" gun the girls carried was aimed at him.

"Ah! Don't shoot, I'm right behind him!" Fubuki yelped, shielding her face with her hands.

"Yes! Please! Don't shoot me!" the... spirit? asked.

"What are you, then, you shitty sword?" Akebono snapped, raising her gun turret a little higher. "Answer, or I shoot!"

"I'm a tsukumogami!" he shouted. Blank stares met the declaration. "Object youkai? Awakens after 100 years of ownership? C'mon, this has to be ringing _some_ bells!"

"But you haven't been around for 100 years," Ayanami helpfully pointed out. "The blade's definitely from the late 1930s, at least; Commander Yamashita must have gotten it along with Fubuki as a package deal."

"Blame her," the tsukumogami said, jabbing a thumb at Fubuki. "Becoming a treasured possession of a mass of spiritual power like her kickstarted the process."

"That makes sense," Akebono muttered, lowering her turret.

As the tension ebbed out of the room, Fubuki looked the tsukumogami in the eye and bowed her head. "It's good to meet you, Shizuo."

The spirit blushed, and rubbed the back of his head. "It's... nice to meet you, too, Fubuki."

~o~

 _Present day_

Fubuki let a contented sigh out through her nose as she remembered that party. Shizuo had proven invaluable, some of his old wielder's command experience rubbing off on him. More than the mentorship, though, he was simply a companion that was always there to lend an ear, especially after her rank-jumping took her away from the room she once shared with her division mates.

Lifting her teacup, she glanced at the clock on her wall - and came within inches of spewing the tea all over the table. "I'm late!" she yelped, throwing on her uniform jacket and nearly throwing down the cup in her haste to scramble out the door. And up on her dresser, Shizuo watched, chuckling.

"Never change, 'Buki."

Just as he was going to go back into his sword, though, the door - huh, she forgot to lock it - creaked open, Murakumo stepping in. Shizuo squinted; that wasn't the original Murakumo, that was the more mechanical Murakumo from that radioactive dustbowl. And she looked _pissed_.

"Ugh, that stupid Captain Darren..." she muttered. "I thought Murakumo was exaggerating about him, but nope! He's just as infuriating as she said!" Pausing, the destroyer took a moment to clutch at her hair. "And yet... _why do I still want him to fluff my hair?!_ Dammit!"

 _'Interesting...'_ Shizuo mentally cackled, filing this tidbit away for later gossip with Fubuki. That was all he could do before Murakumo stalked up to him and jabbed him in the sheath.

"Hey, Mr. Tsukumo-whatever," she said imperiously. "Come out! I wanna talk to you."

"Yo," Shizuo said, waving, as he popped into view. "What's up?"

"I need your help," she said. "I have a plan to humiliate that stupid Captain Darren, and you're a critical part of it."

"Right..." Shizuo replied, skepticism coloring his voice. "You should probably run this by Fubuki first. She does own this sword - and by extension, me."

"I figured you'd say that," Murakumo nodded, rummaging around in her pocket. "That's why I bought this!"

'This' turned out to be a small jar of polish, held in her hand. Very high quality _sword_ polish. Shizuo gulped, pulling at his translucent jacket collar. "W-Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt... you girls never do go too far with him..."

"Thanks!" Murakumo chirped, grasping his hilt and beginning to draw the blade out-

~o~

On the other side of the base, Fubuki, still running, came to a screeching halt, her eyes staring out into nothing. Several sailors and shipgirls nearby paused and eyed her oddly, and Hatsuharu walked up to her and tapped her on her shoulder.

"Are you well, Fubuki?"

Hatsuharu flinched back as Fubuki's head lolled back on a boneless neck, a wide grin dripping with insanity splitting her cheeks. Her eyes now glowed an eldritch blue, and her skin was steadily bleaching white. Not to mention the black aura springing up around her. Everyone present knew what was happening; that it was happening to _Fubuki_ of all shipgirls was the only surprise.

~o~

Back in Fubuki's room, Shizuo and Murakumo both shuddered, the latter resheathing the sword.

~o~

And then as suddenly as it had begun, the Abyssalfication evaporated like a summer's rain. Her head snapped up, and her usual sunny smile returned. "I'm fine, Hatsuharu, but thanks!"

As one, everyone present shuddered at the sheer cognitive dissonance.

~o~

"That was weird..." Murakumo muttered.

"Yeah..." Shizuo agreed. "You should probably go. And ask Fubuki later."

"Good idea..."


	517. Rule 1895

**Rule 1895. You may not cover yourself in seaweed and run around at night. The local fishermen are scared as hell and can't catch fish.  
**  
Sendai sighed as she slowly cruised at five knots over the water. This was _not_ how she wanted to be spending her night. Night battles - both of them - were awesome, and sleep was nice. Night picket duty was not, especially since the SOSUS network and sea and air-search radars could do the job far better than she could. Not that that mattered, since this was a punishment detail and she was being punished.

The memory of _what_ she was being punished for brought a cute pout to her mouth. How was she supposed to know that Sakaki would bring more friends than she'd expected? Besides, she could handle it! But noooooo, apparently people were complaining. Prudes.

The light cruiser was abruptly pulled from her thoughts by a loud splash, something large and dark surfacing next to her. Sendai immediately swung around, aiming her guns at the _thing_ that had surfaced, especially as it raised a dark limb and-

"Sendai? Is that you?"

Froze as it spoke with Goya's voice. Actually...

Squinting, Sendai activated her spotlight, illuminating a vaguely humanoid mass of kelp with glimpses of blue and grey underneath.

"What the hell happened to you?" she asked.

"Did you know there are kelp forests off the Kanto coast?" the submarine answered. "'Cause I didn't."

An amused snort forced its way out of Sendai's nose. "Nice going, _Dechi_."

Pink eyes glared at her from under the mass of kelp. "Don't. Call me that."

"Oh, sorry," Sendai replied, sounding not very sorry at all. "Should I call you the kelp monster instead? Spread stories to scare the destroyers?"

"Sendai... don't make me come over there," Goya growled, shuffling forward.

"Oh, what are you going to do, get kelp on me?" Sendai taunted before throwing the finishing blow. "Eh, _Dechi_?"

A growl sprang to life in the submarine's chest before bursting out of her throat, the submarine also bursting towards Sendai. Sadly, the light cruiser was much faster, and promptly led Goya on a merry chase over the waters.

Even more sadly, none of them noticed several fishing boats trawling the waters. If they had, what happened next might have been avoided.

~o~

Ashigara glared down at the crowd of shipgirls in front of her. It had popped up in front of Captain Yonehara's office five minutes prior, wielding torches and pitchforks (where they found them was a mystery of the universe) and demanding to know where all the fish had gone. She did understand why they were upset - she was annoyed herself at the sudden disappearance of fish from both local restaurants and the mess - but she also knew that there wasn't anything her boyfriend could do about it, and she'd said as much to the mob.

"Bull fucking shit!"

They hadn't listened.

"He can't get any fish, huh?" Zuikaku demanded. "What, did every fisherman in Japan go on strike or something?"

"Actually..." Imuya cut in as she scrolled down her phone. "They did. Something about a kelp monster chasing Sendai...?"

At once, the mood shifted. The mob had a new target, and it was a much more acceptable one. As one, the shipgirls spun on their heels and matched off, Akagi leading the way.

"Maybe I should warn her..." Ashigara mused, before shrugging. "Eh, too much work. Oh, honey!"


	518. Rule 1910

**Rule 1910. San Francisco wishes to point out to people thinking she's a witch since she floats, "No, I am a shipgirl, you bunch of reprobates! So stop doing it!"  
**  
"What the hell did you do to this machine?!" Wisconsin yelped.

The battleship had good reason for her incredulity. The computer that had been shipped to her from Yokosuka, the one which had apparently stumped even their computer technicians, had _rice_ in the A drive! Burnt, melted rice that had burst the A-drive and gotten melted all over the rest of the circuitry!

The battleship had a sneaking suspicion that the problem in Japan had been one of will, not ability. She didn't blame them.

On the computer screen next to Wisconsin, Shokaku fidgeted in place. "I-I thought when I turn it on I should give an offering to the kami in the computer for disturbing its rest! I-It was just one grain!"

Turning away from the thoroughly fucked computer, Wisconsin gaped in astonishment at Shokaku. "So... you've been putting a grain of rice in the A-drive every time you turn this on?" The carrier nodded. "Right... well, since this computer's fucked six ways to Sunday, I'm going to spend my time teaching you better ways to honor the computer kami."

"I'll learn!" Shokaku said, enthusiastic. Wisconsin smirked; looks like this wouldn't be _too_ painful.

"Holy shit this thing is fucked!"

Blinking, Wisconsin turned around to see San Francisco examining the piece of junk. "I think that one's beyond even your magic touch, San Francisco."

"Nah, though I am going to need to work at this one," the heavy cruiser replied. "Hey, Shokaku, mind if I hang onto this for a couple of days?"

"Uh, sure?"

"Thanks! I'll be sure to get it fixed." And with that, San Francisco lifted the machine and walked out. Wisconsin shook her head, while Shokaku was gaping slightly.

"'Magic touch'?" she parroted after a few moments.

"San Francisco has this magical ability - and I do mean magical - to fix electronics," Wisconsin explained. "Just waves her hands and poof! Good as new. Not just computers. either. Video game consoles, cell phones, flat-screen TVs - if a Silicon Valley company is working on it, she can magic it up. The one downside is that some of our shipgirls have taken to calling her a witch."

As if on cue, a small crowd of shipgirls stampeded past the repair shop, Salem holding a bound and gagged San Francisco above her head.

"Found a witch~!" she crowed.

"Mm mmph!"

For a moment, Wisconsin and Shokaku just stared. "Well..." the battleship finally said. "Correction. Several of our shipgirls are convinced that she's a witch."

~o~

"Alright, girls, remind me: how do we test for a witch?"

Salem smiled happily as half the hands in the crowd went up. Finally, her lessons were sinking in! Pointing at a hand at random, she said, "Yes, Kidd?"

"Burn 'er!" the destroyer enthusiastically supplied.

Behind her, San Francisco frantically howled into her gag.

"No, no, that's for killing them!" Salem cheerily corrected. "To test them, we must first see if they float on water."

The muffled cries from San Francisco died down, which the other heavy cruiser took as permission to continue.

"So... we chuck her into the bay?" Mayrant offered.

"Exactly!" Salem said, walking up to a still-glowering San Francisco. "But first, we need to hear what the accused has to say in her defense."

With that, she yanked the gag off, San Francisco sputtering and spitting for several seconds. "Ugh, do you ever wash that thing?" she grumbled. "Anyway, my defense: remember what happened the _last_ time you accused someone of being a witch?"

Salem shuddered. Who knew Maryland knew those sorts of things...? "I-It was a very convincing costume!"

"Or the time before that?"

Yeah, Essex!Hornet hadn't appreciated that one. At all. "I-I, uh..."

"Or the time before _that?"  
_  
Over-caffeinated, pissed-off Canadians. The most terrifying force on Earth. "Light carriers shouldn't be able to do that!"

"I think I've made my point," San Francisco said, smirking.

"But you turned me into a mouse!"

As one, all the eyes on the dock aside from Salem's turned towards Fletcher, who had the good grace to blush and look away.

"I got better..." she muttered.

"Enough!" Salem screeched, punctuating the words with a swift kick to San Francisco's rear that sent her tumbling into San Diego Bay. Despite the fact that her arms were tied, the heavy cruiser stuck the landing, ripples spreading out from her feet.

"A witch!" came the cry from the dock.

"I'm a shipgirl, you daft idiots!" San Francisco shouted back. "Of course I float on water!"


	519. Rule 1915

**Rule 1915. Attempting to kidnap any ship girl/ship man's offspring(s) - be they biologic and/or adopted - equals to us handing you an entrenching shovel.**

It took some time for Enterprise to realize something was wrong. Her poor brain, battered by the lack of sleep every new parent undergoes, simply wanted to enjoy the blessed, rare quiet that night. And, trained as it was to respond to Yoshino's cries, it took some time for it to recalibrate to the _lack_.

"KYAAAAAAAAAH!"

Luckily for almost all involved, _Yamato's_ scream jolted her out of bed immediately. Throwing off the covers, she didn't even bother with a robe before dashing towards Yoshino's room, where she found Yamato slumped on the floor, shivering, with tears streaming from her eyes.

"Yamato!" Enterprise shouted. "What happened? Where's..." She gulped, a pit of ice settling in her stomach at the sight of the empty crib. "W-Where's Yoshino?"

Yamato's face twisting in anguish told her all she needed to know.

And deep within Enterprise, something... broke. Something that released a monster that she had kept under lock and key for decades. A monster that had broken the Japanese Navy, and only vanished in the place in between.

"Don't worry," the Grey Ghost promised. "We'll find her. We'll get her back. And then, whoever took her is going to die. Painfully."

The promise made, the Grey Ghost spun on her heel to prepare for battle - and to find out who she would need to fight.

~o~

The air in the Yokosuka auditorium was tense. Everyone liked Yoshino, and I do mean everyone. The news that she had been taken - confirmation made by grim-faced MPs - had ended all of the usual odd quirks before they began. Even Kagero was looking lucid for the first time anyone could remember. In their place was grim determination and an undertow of icy anger.

Making matters worse was one very conspicuous absence from their ranks. Nobody could prove that Aso had done it, but her absence was intensely suspicious when coupled with her previous thoughts on the infant. Kasagi looked green, and everyone seemed determined to ignore her.

"Alright, I won't mince words," Admiral Goto said as he stepped up on stage. "You all know why you're here. Yoshino is gone. Kidnapped. We're going to find her. And while you're not going to like what I say next, it's very important that you listen." Taking a deep breath as the tension ratcheted up a notch, Goto spoke. "Most of you are not going to be searching."

As expected, there was a general uproar at that, a hundred shipgirls all standing and trying to speak at once.

"Oi! Quiet, the lot of you!"

That uproar died swiftly once Kongo cut through it.

"Continue, Admiral," she said, nodding her head at him.

"Thank you." Turning back to the crowd, he affixed his best angry scowl. "Believe me, I'd love to flood the waves with you girls, but we have other duties to perform," Goto said. "As well, any sort of large task force would simply be an invitation for whoever our kidnapper is to spot it and bolt." Pressing a button, he let a Powerpoint slide show up on the wall behind him. "Two teams will be assembled. The Scouting Force will be trying to gain Aso's trail; while we don't know if she did take Yoshino, she's definitely gone AWOL, and the evidence we have is damning." Another click, and six faces slotted into view. "This team will consist of Enterprise, Nagato, I-19, Kasagi, Hyuga, and Chikuma."

"But Admiral-!" Kasagi began, only to be silenced by a raised hand.

"Kasagi..." he said kindly. "No one blames you for this. You are not responsible for your sister's actions; she is her own person, and made her own choices."

Shutting her mouth with a click, Kasagi sat down again.

"The Striking Force will be travelling to the Marquesas Islands to talk to Re-chan," Goto continued, moving to the next slide. "From there, they will ascertain the location of the Abyssals' latest headquarters, and assault it. This team will consist of Yamato, Kongo, Inazuma, Kitakami, and Take."

"The rest of you, keep your eyes peeled on your regular duties. The kidnapper may try an end-around. Further, I've alerted the rest of the Admiralty. I have been assured that Yoshino is not leaving the Pacific."

Goto paused, taking in the mood. Still grim, still angry, a little resentful, but now something was being done. Their best trackers and fiercest fighters were on the case, and he knew that his girls would attack their usual duties with renewed vigor.

He almost felt sorry for the Abyssals.

"The Scouting and Strike Forces leave in one hour. Dismissed!"

~o~

In the event, Re-chan had known _exactly_ where the Director had holed up. That didn't make passing through the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Shrieking Sixties any more pleasant. And no one dared bring up the Ru-class battleship's head they'd seen in her fridge.

In fact, Take mentally remarked as she crested another mountainous wave, it made it downright miserable.

"Landfall yet?!" she shouted over the howling winds. Yamato, rather than reply verbally, merely shook her head. Take shuddered; the battleship had been eerily quiet ever since they'd left Yokosuka. And Inazuma and Kitakami were poor conversationalists at the best of times.

"How are you holding up, Take-chan?"

That just left Kongo, and that was a cure perhaps worse than the disease.

"I'm managing," the destroyer grunted. "... I'm more worried about Yamato."

Wonder of wonders, Kongo actually sobered at that. "Mm. I hope that Yoshino is here, or that Enterprise can find Aso fast. Otherwise, the aftermath isn't going to be pretty."

"We're here."

Cresting one final wave, Take saw it: a squat block of concrete built into the ice shelf. There was their target. The destroyer fingered her lone torpedo mount. Slowly, the small task force approached, rigging out and aimed. There was no response until they were merely a few hundred yards away, at which point a Destroyer Ancient Demon spotted them.

With surprise on their side, the Japanese shipgirls attacked first. Yamato and Kongo unleashed their secondary batteries, 13 6" and 16 5" pummeling the Abyssal. Take and Kitakami joined in just a fraction of a second later with their own guns. Staggering and battered, it had no chance to avoid the lightning wreathed punch Inazuma landed on it, sending it into and through the outer wall of the headquarters, the Japanese shipgirls scrambling up and in after it.

By chance, Take ended up taking the lead. Greeted by nearly two dozen Boss-type Abyssals, as well as their mysterious leader herself, she grinned. "We're here for Yoshino," she announced. "The only question is, how many of you are going to die before we get her?"

To her disappointment, that only made a smug smile spread over the Director's face. "Take-chan, the destruction of Japan fell _very_ low on my list of priorities," she drawled. "By coming here, you risk making me reconsider."

"You talk too much."

The crowd of Abyssals whirled around just in time to see Kongo backhand the director into the nearest wall. Kitakami, Inazuma, and Yamato took the opportunity to launch a twenty-tube broadside of torpedoes, a lightning bolt the size of a sequoia, and a full broadside, respectively.

Take didn't join in on the chaos that descended. Not only was it too dangerous with Yamato wading into the melee, she'd spotted a Hoppo-lookalike sneaking away. As fun as it was to break Abyssal skulls, they were here for a reason. Let the heavier ships distract the bad guys, she had a target to catch.

It didn't take Take long to catch up, and she bullrushed the diminutive Abyssal before she could react, tackling her to the ground and aiming her torpedo mount at her face. "Not in the mood for a fight?" she quipped. "Maybe we can just talk instead."

~o~

"This farce is over."

Kongo and Inazuma, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting, watched in horror as _something_ launched Kitakami clear across the room, followed shortly by the Director wading back into the fight, none worse for the wear after being punched into the wall by a battleship.

"All that's left is to bring down the curtain," the red-haired woman intoned as she pressed a finger to Yamato's temple. The battleship immediately groaned and slumped to the ground, unmoving. "To scattered and embarrassed applause."

"Kongo, get Take, and get out of here, now!" Inazuma barked as the gathered Abyssals dogpiled Yamato.

"But what about-!"

"Go!" Raising her hand, Inazuma brought down another colossal lightning bolt. "I'll cover our retreat. Whatever it takes."

Nodding, Kongo dove into the in-between space, coming out again to see Take dropping a bleeding Hoppo-lookalike. "They don't have her!" the destroyer announced.

"Great! But we need to go, now!"

Take nodded, and then her eyes widened at something behind the battleship. Kongo turned around, watching a very large bomb approaching them, and did the only thing she could.

She grabbed Take, and wrapped up the smaller shipgirl under her.

The bomb detonated, tremendous heat wafting over Kongo. Skin blistered and armor melted in a symphony of agony that the battleship hadn't felt since the torpedo that killed her. Even after the flames died away, every single one of her nerves was still screaming at the height of their powers under blistered and blackened flesh.

"Shit, Kongo!" she heard Take say, and she cracked open an eye to see the destroyer reach out to her.

*BLAM!*

And then, a shell flatly obliterated the small shipgirl's shoulder. Gritting her teeth at the pain, Kongo reached out, grabbed her leg, and dropped them both into the in-between space, spitting them out a few seconds later in a driving snowstorm on the ice shelf.

"Kongo..." Take groaned, quivering in pain. "I-I can't-!"

"Yokosuka!" Kongo croaked into her radio set. "Come in, Yokosuka!"

 _"Yokosuka. What's wrong?"_

"K-Kidnapper confirmed..." she grit out. "I-It's Aso. We... We need extraction, and medical help, ASAP."

 _"We have Britannic and an Australian task force on the way. Hang in there!"_

Nodding, Kongo slumped fully onto the snow, black creeping into her vision. Her last thought as unconsciousness claimed her was to hope that the Scouting Force was having better luck.

~o~

Half an ocean away, a cloaked figure glanced to the horizon, a grimace marring the pretty features. "Dammit, I thought I'd have more time," she said. Carefully shifting the weight in her arms, she pulled out a repeating crossbow, aiming it into the sky and firing. The arrow promptly transformed into a flight of four planes, planes that took up a CAP pattern.

The carrier had just finished launching her CAP (and prepared a strike package for good measure) when the bundle in her hand shifted and let out a soft whine. The figure smiled, and then reached down to stroke the baby's forehead, quieting it.

"Don't worry," she said. "I won't let anything happen to you."

A savage grin split her face as Abyssal surface ships crested the horizon, the first shells whistling in..

"No matter who tries."

~o~

Enterprise sighed as her SDBs scoured the seas. Iku, clever little sniper that she was, had immediately picked up a trail, everyone else throwing up as many planes as they could. Despite all the air cover, though, they'd lost the trail here, several hundred miles due east of Wake Island. Now they'd split up, hoping to regain the trail, and in the meantime her fire had cooled enough for the Grey Ghost to be replaced by more rational thoughts.

"You okay?" she heard Chikuma ask behind her. The carrier sighed.

"We can't find Aso and I still have no idea how reliable Kasagi is," the American answered. "Take a wild guess."

Before Chikuma could reply to that, both shipgirls blinked as gunfire erupted on the horizon. Enterprise immediately turned and sprinted for the noise, the Japanese cruiser following close behind.

"I've got the lead!" Kasagi announced as she and Iku steamed up to them a few minutes later.

"Knock yourself out."

Soon, they found Nagato and Hyuga standing next to a pile of dead Abyssals. "Nagato screamed and alerted these bastards," Hyuuga explained, giving one of the downed Abyssals a hearty kick.

"Sorry," Nagato apologized, dropping her own opponent. "But whatever was keeping me from sensing Yoshino? It's gone now."

"Alright, lead the way, then," Enterprise said, before eyeing Kasagi as the small task force picked up steam.

"Don't worry, she'll do her job," Iku assured her.

"We'll see."

~o~

"Aghk!"

Aso stumbled back as she blocked several shells with her almost-gone flight deck, the concussion still sending her staggering back. That was the last straw for the structure, wood and metal detaching and falling into the deep. Nor was it the only wound she had. Small cuts and burns littered her body, dripping blood into the sea. Her planes were gone, her rigging a battered wreck, citadel pierced in four places, and only a few 25mm guns were still functional.

More importantly, there was a Southern War Princess right in front of her.

[The end is here, Aso,] said Abyssal intoned. [You fought well, though. If you'd like, I shall give you a quick death.]

Gritting her teeth, Aso wracked her brain for a way out of this. There was none; War Princess aside, there were a half dozen heavy cruisers flanking her.

And then, she heard the sound of planes.

"I'd say look behind you," she smirked.

The War Princess did so, finding dive bombers and torpedo bombers streaking into her position, Hyuuga, Chikuma, and Super Nagamon hot on their heels. With the perfect distraction inbound, Aso turned on her heel and pumped steam to her thankfully undamaged engines.

"Aso!"

The carrier flinched at the sound her sister shouting at her, but she didn't stop. This work was too important.

~o~

"Damn _damn!"_ Enterprise snapped as her apologetic aviators, recently landed, signaled no sign of Aso. "Now what?!"

"I-I apologize... for my... recklessness..." Nagato groaned from where she laid on the water being tended to by a not-lewd-at-all Iku. Her skin was a livid mass of bruises, and shivers of exhaustion wracked her muscles.

"Not your fault," Enterprise swiftly replied. "None of us expected the Abyssals to throw a Southern War Princess at her, and you killed it just fine." She sighed. "Guess we just gotta find Aso without you. Somehow."

"San Diego."

All the ships present turned towards Hyuga, who flinched out of her thoguhts. "Uh, well, since we left Yokosuka we've been going south and then east, right? I checked my maps, the only major ports this latitude on the West Coast are San Diego and Los Angeles/Long Beach, and San Diego's more likely. Plus..." The battleship glanced at Enterprise, before continuing. "No matter why she's doing this, Aso seems to at least care about Yoshino's safety. She could have dumped her at any time during that fight to give herself an advantage, and she didn't."

"More than that, she was protecting Yoshino," Iku cut in. "I've seen that wound pattern before, she was shielding Yoshino the whole time."

"Her delusions!" Kasagi finally chimed in. "Of course! She's defecting to the US, because in her eyes _they're_ now the big dogs who get to trample over everyone."

"I see..." Enterprise said. "It's an interesting theory." Pinching her nose, she went silent in thought. "Alright, here's what we'll do. Chikuma, guard Nagato until Nii-chan can get here, then catch up. The rest of us will press on and spread that theory. If Aso heads to San Diego, great, our job's done. If not... we resume the chase."

Every shipgirl present nodded.

~o~

William D. Porter sighed as she steamed slowly through the waters west of San Diego. Boring. This was so boring! More than any other position radar picket duty symbolized the old military adage of "Hurry up and wait". Long periods of nothing boredom mixed with short periods of lethal excitement. Fun.

A surface radar return proceeded to puncture her boredom like a party balloon, and she hung back, waiting for a visual contact. It was a tense hour as she waited, but when she saw who it was she had to suppress a gasp.

She hadn't quite believed that Aso would head straight to San Diego, but there she was, battered and still bleeding. Biting back a cry of surprise, the destroyer surged forward, coming into shouting range, something Aso didn't miss.

"Hey!" she announced. "I'm defecting to the United States! Now, could you please take Yoshino off my hands? I've lost a lot of blood and I'm... about to... pass out..."

Sprinting forward, Willie D. caught Aso as she did indeed pass out, taking care not to squish a surprisingly docile and alert Yoshino between them.

"Rrgh, you couldn't have waited a little longer?" the destroyer grumbled, keying her radio. "Willie D. to shore, I've got her."

 _"Affirmative. Reinforcements and repair vessels are on the way."  
_  
"Fan- _tastic_."

~o~

Admiral Holloway smiled as he watched Enterprise practically bowl over everyone in her path to pluck Yoshino out of Yorktown's arms, tears streaming from her eyes. It warmed his heart to see a happy ending like this. Well. Happy for them.

That thought brought a scowl to his face as he contemplated the last loose end. Aso had been patched up so she wouldn't keel over dead, and then had been thrown into an interrogation room, chained to the floor with special enchanted chains. He snorted and shook his head. Enchanted chains. What a world he lived in.

In any case, she'd been surprisingly cooperative, but that didn't change the fact that she'd _kidnapped Yoshino,_ and that the subsequent chase had landed three of Japan's best shipgirls in dock for an extended period on top of burning through a good chunk of their stockpiled naval stores and prodded the Abyssals into large-scale aggressive action for the first time in _months_. Yokosuka was howling for her head, and he intended to honor those howls. First, though, he wanted to do something.

Turning, he made his way to the interrogation room, and opened the door, sitting opposite from a very cheery Aso.

"Hey, Admiral," she said, rattling her chains. "You don't need to lock me up like this, I won't try to escape. But I totally get it. You've gotta be careful with defectors and all."

Holloway didn't say anything, merely staring impassively at the carrier. The silence stretched on. And on. And on, until Aso began to fidget. Finally, Holloway said one word.

"Why?"

Aso blinked. "Why what?"

"Why did you do all this?"

"Isn't it obvious?" At the impassive silence, Aso sighed. "Alright. Look, I researched World War II. We were _idiots_ , an ant going up against an elephant. The more I read, about the industrial disparity and the strategic mistakes and the shortages and the Chinese quagmire, the more I learned the truth: Japan was _weak_. America was _strong_. And in this world, the strong consume the weak. That's just how it works."

"I took Yoshino to get her away from weak Japan; because she deserves to be as strong as she can possibly be, and she can never be that in Japan. I wanted to defect because I want to see you do what you do best: destroy Japan, and assimilate it _properly_ into the United States. And then... and then you could do what you want with me. Kill me, display me as a symbol of Japanese weakness, whatever. _That's_ why I did all that."

Aso leaned back, waiting for a response. She didn't have to wait long.

"I see you're still stuck in the 1930s," Holloway sighed.

"No I'm not! I-!"

"Shut up."

Aso's teeth clicked, her jaw closed so fast.

"The strong consume the weak?" Holloway repeated. "That's true, regrettably. But it's less true than it has ever been in human history. More importantly, the entire goal of civilization is to move ourselves away from that mindset. And we're doing so - slowly, fitfully, but we're doing it."

"And you would condemn over 100 million people for this backwards, barbaric belief?" The entire time, Holloway's voice didn't rise a smidge. Honestly, it was more scary like that. "You disgust me. And... I also pity you. Because when I look at you, I see someone who genuinely doesn't know what they're doing wrong. Who has been brainwashed so thoroughly she can't break out of it."

"So I'm sorry to say, but here's what's going to happen. The US government will _not_ be accepting your defection. You will be extradited to Japan posthaste, where they will likely scrap your abilities and lock you in prison on whatever charges they can make stick. And even once you're out, I seriously doubt you'll be allowed to rejoin the JSDF. You will be a civilian with a mark blacker than Satan's heart on your record."

Leaning over, he whispered, "I suggest you think long and hard on what that means."

Leaving a stunned, gaping Aso behind, he stood and left, the door slamming ominously behind him.

He should have stayed.

Aso didn't stay that way for long, you see. The chains, for all that they could easily hold a shipgirl, were attached to far less sturdy concrete. Some hard yanks pulled the cuffs out of the walls, and some hearty bashing against the wall managed to break them off her wrists.

"Now what...?" the carrier breathed. Where could she go? Japan was out; so was the United States, and any civilized country. That could wait, though. She needed to leave, fast, and get away before the Americans could punt her to Japan. The wall was her best bet.

Raising her hand, she poked a hole in it with her finger, her strength driving it through cleanly and silently. She grinned.

~o~

 _"You're joking,"_ Goto flatly stated.

"I wish I was," Holloway sighed. "Aso's escaped, and we have no idea where she's gone."

 _"Rrgh..."  
_  
"On the bright side, she's damaged and has practically no offensive capability," Holloway stated. "And I don't think she'll try another stunt with Yoshino again."

 _"I'm not willing to count on that."  
_  
"Didn't think so," Holloway sighed again. "I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know where she is. We'll... just have to put out a capture on sight order and then move on with our operations."

Goto was silent for a long while. _"I don't like it,"_ he said. _"But I also can't think of a better plan. God_ damn _that carrier."_


	520. Rule 1916

**Rule 1916. Whoever made Zara watch Zombieland, please report to the Admiralty. Taranto's fleet is traumatized after what Zara did to the poor I-class DD Abyssal.**

Zara blinked, consciousness slowly returning to her. Above her, several engineering fairies nodded seriously, and stepped back to be replaced by Giuseppe Garibaldi.

"Ah, you're awake," she said. "How do you feel?"

Sitting up, the heavy cruiser stretched, and then flexed her fingers. "Everything seems to be working," she said. "I take it the refit went well?"

"Yup! Though, ah, there was a... last-minute addition. If you could summon your rigging?"

Frowning, Zara did so. And indeed, there was a new addition. Sitting behind her midships 100mm turrets was a pair of torpedo tubes on a swivel mount.

"According to the fairies, as shipgirls, we don't have as many weight limitations as we did as ships," Garibaldi explained. "So they decided that heavy cruisers should start carrying torpedo tubes again. The Americans are stonewalling, but if this works I think they'll shut up about it."

"That makes sense," Zara nodded. "So, who's going to show me how to use these?"

Immediately, Garibaldi started whistling and refused to look her in the eye.

"It's Lupo, isn't it," Zara deadpanned.

"I plead the Fifth."

"You're not American."

"I still plead the Fifth."

~o~

Two weeks later, Zara eyed an I-class destroyer, clearly out of torpedoes, trying to leave the battlefield. A glance behind her confirmed that the rest of her squadron was handling the mop-up, and she aimed her guns, only to pause and eye that torpedo launcher on her rigging. Lupo never did show up to show her how they worked. Better to try now when there was no risk. Besides, how hard could it be?

Picking up steam, she took off in pursuit of the clearly lamed Abyssal, intent on torpedoing it. Unfortunately, she quickly ran into a problem.

She had no idea how to launch the damn things.

"What muscle am I even supposed to flex?" she muttered.

Finally, after five minutes of wracking her brains, she reached over to the launcher and began fiddling with it. To her surprise, her fingers closed over something smooth and, grabbing and pulling, she yank out one of the torpedoes, which immediately poofed into the size of a baseball bat and began running its motor, propellor spinning.

"Huh..." Zara remarked, shrugging. "Eh, this works, too." Idly noting several of her fellow shipgirls behind her, Zara put on a little more steam and surged forward, bringing the propellor end of the torpedo down on the Abyssal.

"GYAAAAAAAAAARGH!" the destroyer screamed as the bronze propellor carved into its soft flesh, black ichor spraying everywhere. The sounds of retching joined the screams and squelches of the Abyssal and the whine of the torpedo engine in a terrifying symphony that only Zara seemed immune to.

"Dammit, Zara!" destroyer Alpino shrieked, getting a confused look from Zara - and more importantly, causing her to lift up the torpedo. "That's not how you use torpedoes!"


	521. Rule 1918

**Rule 1918. Contrary to what you may believe, Iowa, Five Hour Energy bottles are not suppositories.  
**  
"Ugh..." Phoenix groaned as she wadded up another chemical formula and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. "There's gotta be a way to stabilize that, even just a little bit." Grabbing another scrap of paper, she began to scribble on it. "Maybe if I added some TNT..."

The clock struck three - in the morning. All-nighters were a fact of Phoenix's life. Some of her best work had come from late-night brainstorms. Granted, so had some of her most embarrassing failures, but it was a ratio she was willing to take!

Unfortunately, as happened every so often, she was flagging this night. Her usual response would be stimulants, but she was out of coffee (in hindsight, the timing of this all-nighter could have been better), San Diego had banned energy drinks as unhealthy (ha!), and no way was she trying South Dakota's stimulants. Those could give an elephant a heart attack with one sip.

"My kingdom for a Five-Hour Energy..." she sighed.

"Well, good news, then! The Five-Hour Energy fairy is here!"

Blinking, Phoenix looked behind her, where Iowa was standing in an orange version of her usual outfit, a Pancho-style sling filled with Five-Hour Energy bottles slung over her chest. She blinked again and rubbed her eyes, before reaching out and poking the battleship on the boob, which jiggled.

"This is a really realistic hallucination..." the light cruiser muttered, giving the boob another poke.

"Hey, stop that," Iowa grumbled, batting away the hand. "I'm real. And so is the Five-Hour Energy."

"Okay, if you're real, then give me some," Phoenix challenged.

That brought... not a smile, a triumphant grin to Iowa's face. "Excellent!" she chirped as she pulled on a latex glove with an ominous snap. "Now. Bend over."

Even to Phoenix's sleep-addled brain, that didn't sound right. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Just bend over," Iowa repeated. "It'll all be clear in a second."

"How about no."

In a flash, Iowa reached over, grabbed Phoenix's head, and slammed it down on the workbench. "Don't worry, this'll only take a minute."

~o~

Admiral Holloway glared down at Iowa. So did Phoenix, who was lying on her belly on a doctor's couch. And then there was Medusa, who somehow managed to look even more disapproving than the previous two. Faced with such concentrated disappointment, Iowa could only wilt in the chair she was in. Well, the fact that she was black with soot probably contributed, too.

"How on Earth did you think Five-Hour Energy bottles were _suppositories?"_ the repair ship demanded. "All other problems aside, I'm sure you know how big they are."

"Eh, I never had a problem," Iowa casually replied.

The other three present contemplated the implications and simultaneously gained a desire for a stiff drink.

"And the fact that Phoenix was obviously unwilling?" Holloway nearly growled.

"She was sleep-deprived, she didn't know what she was talking about!"

"Oh yeah?!" Phoenix snapped. "How would you like it if you got blackout drunk and some guy had sex with you? 'Cause that's the closest situation I can think of."

"Oh, yeah, that's always fun..." Iowa replied, gaining a dreamy look on her face.

The desire for drinks intensified.

"Right, that's it, I can't deal with this," Medusa declared. "Iowa, those are drinks, not suppositories. Remember that, because if I have to deal with something like this again, I'm going to see how well your ass can handle a whole pumpkin. Sideways. For science." And with that, she spun on her heel and stomped out.

"I think Medusa's got the right idea," Holloway sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Just... apologize to Phoenix and we'll call it even. How does that sound?"

"Well, I got to blow her up, so I can agree to that," Phoenix nodded.

Holloway and Phoenix both looked expectantly at Iowa, who sighed and hung her head. "I'm sorry, Phoenix," she said. "I didn't know. Ahchoo!"

"Yeah, you should probably take a shower soon," Phoenix remarked as Iowa wiped at her nose. "I'm not entirely sure what I put in that formula."


	522. Rule 1922

**Rule 1922: If you value your life, do not EVER ask about Phoenix her second remodel.**

 **AN: Credit to eboreg on for sending this in.**

Brooklyn paused outside of Phoenix's "lair", as she liked to call it, and gingerly rapped on the door to get her attention. Inside, there was a loud thump - make that two - before Phoenix opened the door, looking notably scorched. The eldest of the Brooklyn sisters cocked an eyebrow at her little sister's appearance and the bright flame burning on her workbench.

"Am I... interrupting anything?" Brooklyn replied, concern tinging her voice.

"Nah, don't worry, that FOOF patch wasn't stable enough anyways," Phoenix replied, even as the flames entirely consumed the workbench. "So, how's Boise doing at Yokosuka? I've been a bit... busy, you know how it is."

"Well enough, I suppose. Although last I heard, Aoba still keeps thinking she's a local shipgirl."

Phoenix snorted before descending into a bout of giggles. "You're kidding! I would have thought she'd have learned after the first two times. And she fancies herself a reporter, dear God."

"To be fair, she does fit the current state of internet journalism," the elder sister hedged. "Anyways, I wanted to talk. I noticed you've gotten quite a lot of field experience by now, and we've had a huge surplus of resources lately..."

Phoenix's expression darkened into a scowl. "What's your point?"

"I was wondering if we could give you your second remodel."

The next thing Brooklyn knew, she was wedged into the door to Philadelphia's room wondering what bus had hit her.

~o~

"I don't know, Conqueror, I feel like I'm strong enough already. I don't think a second remodel will really improve things."

The Orion-class battleship sighed and shook her head at the light cruiser sprawled on her couch eating her crisps. "Phoenix, no matter how strong you are there's always room for improvement," Conqueror stated sagely.

Phoenix turned her gaze to the battleship, looking adorably confused. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, even Midway has a second remodel, and she's the strongest shipgirl in the world," Conqueror pointed out. "And Barham was quite powerful on summoning, but I can tell you right now she was never able to get over her fear of submarines until her-"

Reports on what followed vary wildly but everyone agreed that there was no way a battleship should have been able to get that many third-degree burns.

~o~

La Argentina walked through the San Diego naval base, Brooklyn walking beside her.

"So... you've come to convince Phoenix to get a second remodel?" the American light cruiser confirmed.

"Sí, sí," the Argentinian cruiser replied. "Almirante Brown Skyped me a while back, and I've been worried sick ever since! I couldn't just say no to an adorable little girl like her."

That gave Brooklyn pause. "Wait, who?" she asked, confused.

La Argentina waved her hands around in frustration. "Fletcher class? Works here? What was her original name..." The light cruiser tapped her chin in thought, before shrugging helplessly. "Ah, I forget."

Brooklyn shook her head. With 175 Fletcher sisters, figuring out who was who could sometimes be a nightmare. "I'll figure it out later," she muttered as they came up to the cruiser dorms. "Here we are. Phoenix's room is right here."

Grinning, La Argentina threw open the door without even knocking. "Buenos dias, General Belgrano, I was wondering when you would-!"

And it had been such a nice day, too.

~o~

Admiral Holloway surveyed the burning wreckage that covered a good portion of the San Diego naval base. "Well, I guess we all have our skeletons in the closet."

Brooklyn nodded in slightly shell-shocked agreement. "No kidding, good thing no one got hurt." She still couldn't decide what was more shocking, that her firebrand wild-eyed little sister was the same ship that was infamously sunk during the Falklands War, or that she had managed to set concrete on fire in her recent rampage. And she was leaning more towards the former.

"And to think that a simple Wikipedia search could have prevented all this," Admiral Holloway sighed.

"I'm so sorryyyyyyy!" La Argentina sobbed from where she was clinging to Holloway's leg. "Almirante Brown was beside herself crying! I couldn't leave her alone, I had to do something!"

"She's a Fletcher we have here, apparently," Brooklyn hastily clarified. "Must have gotten that name after being transferred to Argentina postwar."

Holloway wracked his brain before giving it up as a lost cause in favor of using his smartphone to check Wikipedia. "Well, we can look, but there are literally hundreds of Fletchers here. It's unlikely I'll even recognize-"

He was wrong. He hated being wrong. Holloway's eye started twitching and his hands shook at his sides as an all too familiar name showed up on his screen, accompanied by a photo of an equally familiar face that looked more and more like a mugshot every goddamn second.

"Uh, Admiral...?" Brooklyn said as she took a hesitant step back.

"I want Taffy 3 here _yesterday_ ," he growled. "Maybe Hoel can give me a sane explanation for this whole debacle."


	523. Rule 1929

**Rule 1929. You may not use Lego bricks to make substitute equipment.  
**  
Gneisenau glanced worriedly at her sister as they steamed back in to Germany. Scharnhorst had been oddly quiet ever since a stray salvo had obliterated one of her gun turrets, silently smashing the opposition with her remaining guns. For the gregarious and outspoken battleship, this was practically a sign of the end times.

On top of that, once they were clambering up onto the pier, she immediately made a beeline for her rooms rather than stick around to chat and maybe drag a few girls to the nearest bar. Or, y'know, head into the repair shop to schedule an appointment for a turret replacement.

"You girls go on ahead," Gneisenau said as Hipper made the offer for drinks instead. "I should got check up on my sister."

Excuses made, Gneisenau scurried off to the room they shared, raising her hand to knock on the door. Before she could do so, though, she paused, thinking it over. Would Scharnhorst answer her? Was it right for her to inquire like this? Maybe it was super private.

"And that's exactly why I'm knocking, instead of just barging in," Gneisenau rationalized, rapping her knuckles against the wood. Almost immediately, the door swung open to reveal Scharnhorst with a sunny smile on her face.

"Hey, Gneis, what's up?" she chirped.

'Gneis' blinked, trying to reconcile the Scharnhorst of fifteen minutes ago with the Scharnhorst in front of her. "... How's your turret?" she finally asked.

"Perfect!"

Now, wasn't that interesting? The younger battleship distinctly remembered her sister's #2 turret going up in a flash of fire and smoke characteristic of detonating ready ammo. And unlike that case with Iowa several weeks back, there weren't any convenient twin 15" turrets to yoink. "Alright..." she said dubiously. "So, Hipper invited us all out for drinks. You in?"

"I'm so in!" was the enthusiastic reply as Scharnhorst fairly sprinted out of her room.

Gneisenau took the opportunity to look in the room. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except for a few Lego bricks scattered around on the floor.

"Weird..."

~o~

Three days later, the twins were sortieing again. Despite watching her sister like a hawk the whole time, Gneisenau couldn't see anything wrong. And whatever was going on, the repair fairies had signed off on it. Was she just being paranoid?

Then Scharnhorst summoned her rigging, and all thoughts about paranoia went out the window.

"Sister..." Gneisenau said in a strangled voice. "Why is your Bruno turret made out of Lego?"

"D'you know how long it takes to get a new turret?" the other battleship answered. "This was faster. Besides, if you're worried about the turret working..." She jabbed a thumb at the colorful plastic structure. "Watch and learn!"

To Gneisenau's astonishment, the turret began to move, guns elevating up and down. And then her eyes fairly popped out of her head as the plastic guns erupted in fire and smoke. Once the latter cleared, the turret and its guns remained, full intact, not a crack or melted brick in the bunch.

"I had to glue 'em all together to make them stick, but it works!" Scharnhorst declared. "Now, time to sortie!"

Numbly, Gneisenau followed her sister out onto the sea. What else could she do?


	524. Rule 1931

**Rule 1931. Yes, you are allowed to bring water containers with you on sortie. No, you are not allowed to fill them with alcohol.**

Admiral Graham sipped a cup of strong coffee as he watched all five of the R-class hit the water, ignoring the glares Argus was sending the beverage's way. Let her be annoyed, coffee was infinitely better than tea for staying awake, though tea was better at soothing nerves. But right now he needed the former rather than the lat-

Hang on.

Squinting, Graham retrieved a pair of binoculars and gazed down on the battleships again. Sure enough, all but Revenge were carrying water bottles, either the standard store-bought variety or heavy-duty metal refillables.

"Do you know why my battleships are lugging water bottles with them?" he asked Eagle.

"Hmm..." Eagle hummed, her glare at the admiral's coffee breaking. "Well, I did hear Revenge complaining to Barham in the mess about, and I quote, 'fake-ass condenser bullshit'. Maybe that's what it's about?"

Nodding, Graham went over the refit schedules in his head, which had been jumbled about by the switch in COs, and frowned as he couldn't recall when the R sisters had had a good machinery overhaul.

"Eagle, schedule all five for a maintenance refit, just in case," he said. "And bump them as far ahead in the queue as you can."

"Yes, Admiral."

~o~

Another day, another several minutes spent staring out the window of his office, sipping tea, as the R sisters sortied. And once again, he saw four of them carrying water containers. He frowned; odd, that, considering he knew they'd gone through their maintenance cycles just the day before.

"Eagle," he said, not taking his eye off the sortieing battleships. "What did the maintenance report say? I haven't had a chance to look at it yet."

Paper-shuffling ensued, and then Eagle cleared her throat. "Revenge was in good enough shape that they just gave her a lollipop and sent her on her way," the old carrier reported. "Ramillies just needed a good boiler cleaning and some condenser parts replaced. As for Royal Oak, Royal Sovereign, and Resolution, they've been scheduled for a full condenser replacement in... three weeks."

"I see," Graham said, nodding. "Then why is Ramillies still carrying around that water bottle?"

"Couldn't tell you, Admiral."

Nodding again, Admiral Graham sat down, waiting for the battleships to return, though not before unlatching his window. As such, he heard Revenge's usual whoop of victory as she and her sisters arrived in the harbor. "I'm going for a walk," he announced.

"Don't traumatize her too badly, Admiral," Eagle replied.

Making his way down to the docks ever so casually, Graham got there just as the battleships clambered up onto the pier.

"Good afternoon, everyone," he greeted, nodding at the water bottles. "Still having condenser issues?"

"Yeah," Royal Oak groused. Out of the corner of his eye, Graham noted Ramillies pale and Revenge grab her shoulder. "Stupid finicky... we get our turbines refurbished, our boilers need work. We get our boilers retubed, the condensers break down. And how Revenge keeps herself running is a mystery of the goddamn universe!"

"Lifestyle," Revenge drawled.

"Well, good news on that front," Admiral Graham replied. "Maintenance tells me that once they get your condensers replaced, that should be the last of the issues for the foreseeable future."

As Royal Oak, joined by Resolution and Royal Sovereign, cheered happily (and were those tears?), Graham turned to Revenge and Ramillies, the latter of whom was now visibly sweating.

"Now, as I recall, neither of you had condenser trouble..."

"Which makes ya wonder why she bothers ta keep dis thing around?" Revenge asked, holding up the empty plastic water bottle.

"Exactly."

Taking the bottle out of Ramillies' numb fingers, he unscrewed the cap and held it up to his nose, giving it a sniff. The stench of vodka assaulted his nostrils, and he couldn't help a flinch back.

"And that will be a charge for drinking on duty," he said. "I'm thinking... no alcohol for a month? Revenge, would you mind enforcing that?"

"Sho' thing, Admiral!" the battleship said, saluting.

Ramillies, for her part, simply let out a piteous whine.


	525. Rule 1934

**Rule 1934: Iowa, stop. We do not know who has suggested to you to "Kirk the Abyssals into being our allies", but it has to STOP.**

"Has anyone seen Iowa?"

Indiana and North Carolina glanced up at the worried-looking Wisconsin leaning over them, and shrugged. "Sorry, but we haven't seen her," Indiana replied, frowning. "Actually, we haven't seen her for days."

"Yeah, no one's seen her for three days," Wisconsin explained. "She's vanished before, but usually when she's gone this long she asks for leave rather than just going completely AWOL." A sigh, and the battleship turned away. "Just... keep an eye out for her, okay?"

Giving vague affirmatives, the two battleships went back to watching the sea and the ships combing through the bay. As such, they got a front-row seat as the carriers docked at Coronado suddenly burst into a hive of activity, followed shortly by a destroyer charging up the channel.

"Huh. Wonder what's got their panties in a twist," North Carolina remarked, another destroyer following the first.

Thundering footsteps sounded out behind them, and both battleships glanced back just as Washington, Alabama, and Massachusetts dashed by and jumped onto the water.

"Move your caboose, you two!" Alabama called back as she picked up steam. "We've got an Abyssal heading for the bay!"

Indiana and North Carolina exchanged looks, and then jumped onto the bay themselves, rigging coming out. "What's the Abyssal?" Indiana called out.

"Wo-class carrier!" Washington answered. "And no, we don't know why it hasn't launched planes yet!"

As the battleships steamed towards the mouth of the bay, more and more shipgirls joined them. Destroyers first, chattering excitedly. Then grim-faced cruisers. And then finally, the remaining Iowa sisters. Overkill for one carrier with no planes in the air, but nobody trusted the Abyssals not to have a trap ready.

Nothing happened as they aligned themselves into a neat battle line stretching across the bay mouth. Nor when Hawaii touched down, power roiling off her in blue waves. The Wo-class carrier, by then visible, simply calmly steamed up to them. When she got closer, it scanned the line and zeroed in on the Iowa sisters.

[You are the sisters of Iowa, correct?] the Abyssal called out.

Missouri and New Jersey exchanged confused glances. "Uh, yeah?" the latter replied.

[Good. I need you to verify her signature,] the Wo-class said, digging into a pocket. The shipgirls all tensed, then relaxed as the Abyssal truly only pulled out a piece of paper. After a moment of hesitation, New Jersey steamed up and took, covered all the while by her sisters' guns. Taking the piece of paper, she began to read, her eyes going wider and wider her jaw dropping lower and lower as she read.

"She did _what?!"_ the battleship exclaimed, wild eyes landing on the impassive carrier. "You're _what?!"  
_  
"Well, don't keep us in suspense, big sis," Wisconsin cut in, taking the sheet from her. "What's got you all so-"

To their dying days, North Carolina and Indiana would swear that Wisconsin's eyes literally popped out of their sockets as she looked the missive over. "Y-You're-!" she stammered, pointing a quivering finger.

[Allow me to introduce myself,] the Abyssal stated, bowing and smirking. [I am the duly appointed ambassador of the Central Princess, authorized in all ways to negotiate any agreements with the United States of America. You may call me Wonda.]

Straightening, the Abyssal counted down in her head. _[3... 2... 1...]  
_  
 ** _"WHAT?!"_**

~o~

"Pinch me, Wright, I must be dreaming," Admiral Holloway dimly said.

[I'm afraid I'm _not_ a figment of your subconscious, Admiral,] Wonda said smugly.

"I was afraid of that..." Holloway groaned, cradling his head in his hands. "Do I even want to know how Iowa factors into this?"

To the Admiral's dismay, Wonda blushed at that. Blushed!

[She was... extraordinarily persuasive,] the carrier coughed. [And persistent. And as I understand human workplace regulations, any further elaboration would be... unprofessional.] She hummed thoughtfully. [Though if I had to sum it up, it was a very 'Captain Kirk' style of diplomacy. Our Princess simply couldn't handle those sorts of negotiations for long before breaking down.]

THUNK!

[I had a similar reaction.]

Silence reigned for several seconds before Holloway, not lifting his head from his desk, cut to the heart of the matter. "What do you want?"

[Short-term we - by which I mean the Abyssals under the Central Princess's command - would like a temporary ceasefire with your forces,] Wonda explained. [Long-term, though... we would like to reach an accommodation regarding Hawaii.]

For once glad of his head-desking, for it hid his reaction, Holloway hastily shoved down the urge to gape or whoop, instead raising a grim-faced expression. "The US government will not accept anything less than-"

[Unconditional surrender, yes, yes,] Wonda interrupted, waving her hand. [We've heard the party line many times. We also know that any sort of Hawaii operation would require vast logistics and all of San Diego's shipgirls. In fact...] She smirked. [Free tidbit for you, Admiral. Some of our more tactically-minded comrades have estimated you'll need to bring in Bremerton and Yokosuka as well. And how many would you lose, hmm?]

For all that he was internally grinding his teeth, Holloway had to concede the point. Intelligence on the Abyssal presence in Hawaii was always spotty (being limited to what Nii-chan could safely discern in her free time), and the carrier's estimates matched the worst-case force ratios.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. "And I'll have to punt this up to my political masters, but I think an armistice can be arranged, at least. On one condition."

Wonda nodded. [What condition?]

"Keep Iowa from _spreading_ her 'Kirk Diplomacy'."

Wonda immediately blanched. [Admiral, I assure you, my Princess is doing everything in her power to do so.]

~o~

Iowa yawned and stretched on the bed she'd been provided. How nice that she'd gotten _civilized_ Abyssals who liked the creature comforts of modern industry, albeit looted from the abandoned homes and hotels of Hawaii. A soft sigh caught her attention, and she glanced down at the nude form of the Central Princess next to her. Of course, with that sort of company even palm fronds on fresh basalt would've been nice. Alas, she had other business to attend to. Grabbing a robe someone had thoughtfully left her, she padded towards the door, intent on finding her outfit and rigging so that she could... _repeat_ this process. Singapore seemed like a good target, or perhaps Jakarta. Malta would have to wait.

Opening the door, she blinked at the sight. Standing there was a Ru-class battleship in a classy butler's tuxedo, flanked by a pair of Ta-class in maid outfits. Maid outfits with miniskirts, short, ruffled sleeves, and exposed cleavage. Iowa blinked, a line of drool pooling at one cheek.

[How may we serve you, Miss Iowa?] the Ru-class - no, the butler - asked.

"Uh... well, could you guys get me my clothes and rigging? I have... uh... other appointments to make," Iowa said, a little dazedly.

[Very well,] the butler nodded. [A pity, though. We had... so much else to show you.]

Iowa paused, clearly thinking that statement over. "What... other things?" she asked.

The butler snapped her fingers, and a line of Abyssals suddenly... appeared. Iowa gulped, tugging at the collar of her robe. From what she could see, the line consisted of every type of sapient standard Abyssal, as well as several unique Boss units. And all were wearing a different outfit, each with its different appeal. There a Wo-class carrier in a white string bikini; there a Ne-class cruiser in shorts and a tank top, both cut about as short as decency allowed; and there some variety of submarine in...

Iowa gulped. That was paint. Just paint.

"And your princess won't mind?" she asked.

[Be prepared to attend to her when she wakes, but otherwise no.] The butler smirked. [We are Abyssals. Human ideas of relationships are romantic, but not some unstoppable cultural force.]

"I... think I'll stay a few more days, then," Iowa decided.

[Splendid!]


	526. Rule 1940

**Rule 1940. After numerous complaints, German kanmusu are banned from Warsaw.**

Warsaw didn't see many shipgirls. Located deep inland in a country with few shipgirls even available to summon, most were content to just nervously eye their shipgirl-armed neighbors, Germany and Russia. This was the only reasonable explanation for none of the inhabitants of the city recognizing the two German heavy cruisers staggering down the streets, heavily sloshed and carrying bottles of more liquor with them. Instead, the citizens just watched, bemused, as a pair of German tourists made fools of themselves.

Naturally, some less... savory characters tried things with them. Drunken obliviousness and several crushed fingers put that to an end.

"Ah..." Blucher sighed, giggling. "Thish shity... it'sh great! Pretty buildingsh... pretty... pretty shuildingsh..." The heavy cruiser lifted up the bottle, glaring at it. "Blame you. Fuck you."

"Yeah, it is nice..." Hipper agreed, more coherently but no less drunkenly. "Y'know what would be also nice?"

Blucher frowned, thinking. And thinking. And thinking. Finally, after ten minutes of the two staggering down the sidewalk, she shrugged. "'Dunno. More..." She raised the bottle and gave it a shake.

"Nah. Good idea, though," Hipper replied. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone - and immediately dropped it. "Dammit. Hang on..." Bending over to pick it up, she completely overcompensated and fell flat on her face. Hearing Blucher collapse - literally - into laughter behind her, the heavy cruiser reached out, smacking her hand on the ground to try and grab the phone. Finally, her palm smacked against the screen, her fingers curled around it, and she lifted it up to her face.

Now she had a new problem: unlocking it and finding what she was looking for. That took a good ten minutes of clumsy finger-poking, most of her attention focused on not punching her finger through the glass. Finally, though, she pulled up a video playing a rather... specific song, looped into a ten-hour video.

"It'sh good..." Blucher decided.

"I know, right?" Hipper agreed.

The two heavy cruisers locked eyes, some sort of understanding passing between them. As one, they got up and began staggering for the outskirts of the city.

~o~

Admiral Hartmann sighed as he watched two of his heavy cruisers march down a Warsaw street, blaring the Hohenfriedberger Marsch at full blast from their phones, rigging firing tracer rounds into the air, and Hipper carrying a police car with two hapless, panicking policemen still inside it.

Or, in fewer words, two Germans had marched through Warsaw firing guns and blaring the _original_ Music to Invade Poland To.

The words 'political shitstorm' were a gross understatement.

"So," he said, pausing the video and sternly looking at the two cruisers involved. "What do you two have to say for yourselves?"

Both heavy cruisers groaned like wounded animals, rubbing at their skulls. "Please don't talk so loud, Admiral," Hipper whispered.

"I thought so," Hartmann nodded. "Consider yourselves banned from alcohol indefinitely. And Warsaw, but I suspect you care more about the alcohol."

Hangovers clouding their usual judgement, both cruisers nodded.

"Also, you're being rotated into Tromsø to relieve Leipzig and Nurnberg."

Some grumbling came from Hipper at that, but she held her peace.

"And finally, while you're there, you're going to listen to everything Tirpitz says. No matter how petty."

"YOU'RE OUT OF LINE!" Hipper barked, slamming her palms on the table.

"That's... that's just _mean_ , Admiral!" Blucher whined cutely. "I don't wanna dress up as a reindeer again!"

Hartmann made a show of thinking about that. "Well, I could scrap that plan and simply make you guys be the ones to smooth things over with the Poles..."

"We shall do whatever she says, Admiral!"

"Yeah!"


	527. Rule 1943

**Rule 1943. We would like to take the opportunity to clarify that bat bombs are not in any way related to Batman and should not be equipped to your aircraft or used in battle.**

USS Bogue blinked as her phone rang. Picking it up, she raised an eyebrow at the caller ID identifying the caller as Phoenix. _'What does that crazy firebug want now?'_ she wondered. Curious, she hit the reply button. "Hello?"

 _"Hey, Bogue, glad I could get ahold of you!"_ the light cruiser said. _"Listen, I-"  
_  
"Came up with a new explosive?" Bogue interrupted. "Or incendiary? And you want me to test it out?"

 _"Yes- no- It's the bat bombs! I'm testing the bat bombs!"  
_  
The escort carrier's face fell flat. Oh, she remembered reading about _that_ daft idea. "How many carriers did you call before getting to me?" she drawled.

 _"All the fleet carriers. And the light carriers. And Long Island. And Midway dropped a toilet on my head,"_ Phoenix sighed. _"But that's not the point! The point is, name your price, I'll pay it!"  
_  
"Phoenix, if you can get me into a tag-team wrestling tournament, I'll gladly lug those bats for you," Bogue snarked.

~o~

Three days later, Bogue, situated in the middle of an excited crowd of shipgirls, stared open-mouthed at the notice tacked to the bulletin board.

"Oh my God that crazy light cruiser actually did it," she breathed as the notice of a Shipgirl Tag-Team Tournament blared from the wall. "Well, I better sign up before all the slots fill up!"

Shoving her way to the front, she grabbed one of the paper tabs - just as Ranger's hand fell on the same one. The two carriers glanced at each other, sparks flying. After several tense seconds, Bogue spoke.

"Hey, wanna team up? It is a tag-team tournament."

Ranger opened her mouth, then paused and glanced around at _who_ was looking interested. Battleships. Cruisers. A few of the destroyers. And if that was here in Norfolk, where heavy ships were a rarity...

"Sure," she decided. "Us carrier girls gotta stick together."

"Excellent," Bogue said, taking the tab. "Ah, but could we hold off on training for a bit? I need to take care of something, should be able to do it next time I sortie."

"Training?" Ranger parroted.

Bogue felt a grin spread over her face. "Yes, training. This is wrestling; we need to put on a proper show."

~o~

[KYAAAAAAA! THEY'RE IN MY HAIR! THEY'RE IN MY HAIR! GETTHEMOUTGETHEMOUTGETTHEMOUT!]

Bogue watched through the eyes of her Avenger pilot as the bats released by said Avenger made their way to the nearest nesting spot they could find: namely, the just-surfaced Submarine Empress. Who was now flailing madly about trying to get the bats _out_ of her hair.

"I am never disparaging the bat bomb again," she breathed, activating her radio. "Uh, guys, did Phoenix tell you when those incendiaries are supposed-"

FWOOSH!

[AHHHHHHHHHH! NOW MY HAIR IS ON FIRE! WHY IS MY HAIR ON FIRE?!]

[Empress!] a random Abyssal submarine cried out as it surfaced to help its stricken Empress. [Remember the human phrase! Stop, drop, and roll!]

And so it was that Bogue was treated to the sight of the Submarine Empress, one of the two most powerful Abyssals on the entire planet, rolling on the water trying to put out her flaming hair. Considering napalm was involved, that was... less than successful.

[AAAAAAAHHHH NOW THE WATER'S ON FIRE TOO!]

Hell, her pilots had even gotten the bats to re-roost in their bomb bay!

"Now I kinda feel bad..." Bogue muttered. Then she grinned as she pulled up another Avenger. "But not bad enough to stop using these!"


	528. Rule 1950

**Rule 1950. USS Barbero may no longer use her guided missile loadout. The ability to use Regulus I cruise missiles do not justify the expenses that have been incurred.**

USS Tunny groaned contentedly as she stretched her arms above her head. The submarine was sprawled out on a deck chair perched on top of San Diego's submarine pen, wearing her usual swimsuit. That was one of the nice things about the uniform, though many submarines opted for even skimpier outfits when they wanted to go sunbathing.

For now, though, she was alone, and she intended to enjoy this.

And enjoy it she did, until about an hour in, when she heard an odd whooshing sound. Raising her head and lowering her sunglasses, she glanced around the city. No fireworks, no rocket tests, there was a Regulus missile flying in from the Pacific, nothing at the airpo-

Wait a minute.

Tunny hastily summoned her rigging and aimed every gun there at the goddamn _nuclear cruise missile_ soaring towards San Diego.

"Goddammit, Barbero!" she howled, 5" gun barking.

Somehow, despite the missile's great speed and her complete lack of an AA fire control system, one of her shells actually managed to detonate close enough to bring down the Regulus. "Yes!" the submarine cheered, pumping her fist as the missile teetered and fell - straight towards headquarters. "Aw, shi-"

The missile crashed nose-first into a spot Tunny recognized as Admiral Holloway's office, crumpling the concrete like gypsum and then exploding in a shower of combusted rocket fuel.

"Oh, that looks like it hurt," the submarine muttered, turning on her heel. "Maybe nobody'll notice me..."

Rubble shifting sounded out over the city, and despite herself Tunny turned around to see a black, red-eyed demon rise out of the flaming rubble, Wright slung over its shoulder.

"BARBERO! TUNNY!" it howled. "YOU'D BETTER HAVE A DAMN GOOD EXPLANATION WHEN YOU GET TO THE DOCKS!"

"Guess not," Tunny half-sighed, half-whimpered.

~o~

"I'm so sorry about this, Admiral," Tunny sighed as she eyed the wreckage of his office.

"Don't worry about it," Holloway replied, the hand not occupied holding an ice pack to his head waving her off. "Or did you mean not preventing your sister from doing this?"

"Oh, no, I don't blame myself for that," Tunny quickly answered. "This dummy gets into trouble entirely on her own."

"That's mean!" Barbero whined from where she was tied to a convenient tree. Tunny, meanwhile, simply smacked her fist on her head. "Owie!"

"Honestly, I don't know what she's thinking most of the time."

"I was trying to deliver you a letter!" Barbero snapped.

The other two present froze, right as a breeze blew a scorched piece of paper into Tunny's face. Spluttering, she peeled it off and looked it over, clearly part of an envelope and part of her sister's handwriting visible.

"You launched a Regulus missile," Tunny said, body quivering with rage. "Scared the living daylights out of _everyone_ , and _blew up the Admiral's office_. Just... to deliver a goddamn _letter?!"  
_  
"Yes?" Barbero replied hopefully.

WHAM!

"Dammit, sis, at least my daft ideas bring benefits..." Tunny sighed, rubbing her fist.

A whistling sound drew the attention of Admiral and submarine skyward, their eyes widening as a black speck readily identified as a shell screamed towards them. Both immediately dove behind the first cover they could think of: the ruins of Holloway's office.

To their surprise and relief, though the shell came screaming in with all the velocity they expected, it didn't explode. Instead, it just stuck in the ground like the world's biggest lawn dart. As they watched, a hatch opened up, sending a letter on a stand popping out.

Admiral Holloway took the initiative, climbing out from behind their cover and tearing open the envelope. He immediately started quivering in... something. Frowning in curiosity, Tunny walked up and plucked the letter out of his numb fingers, reading it over.

"So, Iowa's sticking with her 'diplomatic duties', huh?"

"Smart..." Admiral Holloway growled. "Because if she was here, I'd put my _boot_ up her ass for _using her guns to deliver mail!"_


	529. Rule 1956

**Rule 1956. With St. Patrick's Day coming up, we've instituted some temporary rules. We can't stop all the mayhem, but we can at least curtail the worst possibilities.  
**  
 _"AAAAAALRIGHT, EVERYBODY! THIS IS YOUR MASTER OF CEREMONIES, BOSTON, AND IT'S TIME FOR A SAINT PATRICK'S PARTY!"  
_  
O'Bannon's Irish Pub erupted in cheers as the patrons, near-universally decked out in green, roared and raised the mugs of beer they had already purchased.

 _"And for the shipgirls in our crowd, I'm sorry to say that the Admiralty has instituted a few ground rules,"_ Boston continued. _"There will be only 4 Guinness per ship, 3 shots of Jameson, 3 shots of Bailey's, and 2 destroyer-sized servings of corned beef and cabbage. Though..."_ Boston leaned over conspiratorially, putting a hand over the mic. _"If you don't cause any trouble, O'Bannon has been informed that she can be... convinced to go above those limits."  
_  
"YOU'RE OUT OF LINE!"

All eyes shifted to a visiting Duke of York, who had stood and was pointing an angry finger at Boston. "THIS IS BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT!"

 _"Hey, I didn't make the rules,"_ Boston groused.

"Oh, so you're not IRA, you just meekly go along with what they say?"

At those words, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped fifty degrees. Most of the patrons were glaring at her. Belfast and London were glaring at her. O'Bannon took the shot of Bailey's the battleship had ordered and lifted up to her lips. And New York was cracking her knuckles and looking quite eager to bust some heads.

"I, ah... that is... uh..." Defeated, Duke of York slumped in her seat and tried to look invisible. "Never mind, the limits are reasonable..."

"FINALLY! LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED, WOO!" a blushing, obviously sloshed Iku roared, jumping on the bar and gyrating to some unseen beat, a bottle of Guinness in one hand. Catcalls and whoops rose up from the patrons, who clearly liked what they saw.

"Remember, Iku, only one per hour!" O'Bannon reminded, shoving the submarine's green swimsuit-clad ass out of the way. "Damn that lewdmarine. Does she ever have anything else on the mind?"

"From what Boise's been telling us?" Boston remarked, stowing her megaphone. "Not really, no."

The party quickly built up to full swing, and the door swinging open didn't stop it in the least. It did catch the attention of the nearby patrons, as well as the three keeping mostly out of the party. A cry of "Ow!" rose from the crowd as the newcomer pushed through to the bar, followed by more "Ow!"s before finally a bedraggled Malaya pushed to the front, conspicuously _not_ wearing green.

"Damn Irish and their damn holiday..." the battleship grumbled. "Shot of the strongest you can give me. Stupid rules, saying I can't retaliate..."

Wordlessly, O'Bannon began pouring a shot glass of Bailey's, pausing to shove Iku off the bartop. "Off."

"Meanie!" the submarine slurred, before sidling up to Malaya. "Youuuu're not wearing greeeeeeeen... And y'know what that means?"

"Pinching?" Malaya sighed.

"Yup!" And with that, Iku reached around and grabbed Malaya's breasts, pinching. The reaction was immediate: the battleship's hand flashed out and grabbed the submarine by her swimsuit before throwing her into the back wall.

"Uh, I'm not going to get in trouble for that, am I?" Malaya sheepishly asked as Iku peeled down from the wall, several leering patrons going up to examine her.

"Don't worry, they're only supposed to pinch," Boston answered. "If they do more, you can retaliate."

"Just pay for the wall repairs and we're golden," O'Bannon added.

"Super." Taking her shot glass, Malaya downed it in one gulp. "Another."


	530. Rule 1959

**Rule 1959. Just a friendly reminder: trash can lids are not shields. You may not bring them on sortie.  
**  
"Alright, everybody!" USS Somers chirped on the waters outside San Diego. "We've got a heavy cruiser to go sink! And remember to stay safe and always have fun!"

Tillman sighed out her nose, a smile on her face as she watched Shubrick and Herndon cheer enthusiastically. "Ah, to be young..." she breathed.

"You're younger than them," Beatty pointed out.

"Details," Tillman replied airily, turning to her sister. Her eyes promptly widened at what she was carrying. "Is that a trash can lid?"

"Nope, this is my shield!" the destroyer bragged, brandishing the trash can lid much like an actual shield. "There will be no magazine detonations on my watch! Here..." Beatty dug another lid out of her hold. "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this."

Tillman dubiously eyed the lid before shaking her head. "I'll take my chances, thank you."

"Your loss."

Up ahead, Somers began enthusiastically waving them over, and the destroyer quintet set out in a loose line. The heavy cruiser was about fifty miles out, throwing impotent curses (and equally impotent AA shells) at the F-35 orbiting at 35,000 feet, and it was not long before the destroyers made contact. 8" shells flew out, but even in daylight in open ocean swatting destroyers with slow-firing 8" guns was a chancy proposition.

"Look out!"

Chancy, not impossible.

Beatty looked up to see an 8" shell screaming towards her, too close to evade (not that you really _could_ evade a supersonic shell). Already carrying her "shield", it was a simple matter to adjust her position slightly to present it, and the shell hit, detonating a split second later. The smoke quickly cleared.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

To reveal Beatty clutching the burnt stump of her arm, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

That, in turn, caused Somers, Shubrick, and Herndon to start screaming sympathetically, their Abyssal opponent forgotten. Said Abyssal was, for her part, immobilized in shock and surprise, which allowed Tillman to steam up close and pump her full torpedo complement into it.

"I told you that wouldn't work as a shield," she called out to Beatty.

"Huuuuuurts..." the destroyer groaned.

"Suck it up," was the reply. "We're, like, two hours from base. You'll be fine."

"I'd like to see you lose an arm and be totally okay with it! Meanie!"


	531. Rule 1963

**Rule 1963. The Coast Guard would like to remind you girls that suspicious objects you bring back from sortie are subject to inspection, no matter how trivial they are.**

The convoy had been safely shepherded across the Atlantic, valuable but empty merchant ships awaiting new holds full of American goods - or, in some cases, to schlep off to the rest of the Americas to fill their holds elsewhere. But while the cargo ships were now safely pulling up to the piers in New York, the shipgirl escorts had steamed down the coast to Norfolk, ready to rest and relax before they were next called up for a convoy.

Or, at least, they would once the Coast Guard shipgirls finished inspecting everything the DEs had picked up on the trip.

"Alright," USCGC Humboldt said in a bored tone as Gustafson steamed up. "Anything to declare?"

"No," the destroyer escort answered, though the fact she was looking anywhere but in Humboldt's direction and her scrunched-up mouth put paid to that lie.

Sighing, Humboldt scribbled something on her clipboard and held her hand out. "Alright, show me."

Gustafson fidgeted for several seconds before rummaging in her hold and pulling out quite a bit of trash: six-pack plastic rings, water bottles, and all manner of other plastic junk. "I-I just want to get all this properly thrown away!" she explained.

The cutter didn't respond, instead inspecting each item. "Alright, it's all clean," Humboldt finally said. "Go on in and get that thrown away."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Alright, next!"

As Reeves steamed up, declaring an interesting piece of driftwood, one destroyer towards the back of the line let out a frustrated groan. "Argh, this is ridiculous!" Metivier complained. "It's harmless, all of it is! Why do we need to wait hours to go through these stupid inspections?"

"Because all it takes is one cursed or Abyssalfied object to get through and then we're all in trouble," McNulty patiently explained as Clarence Evans steamed up. "I say that's a good enough reason for this sort of inconvenience."

"FOR THE EMPRESS!" the aforementioned Clarence Evans suddenly declared, grabbing an odd dagger glowing with Abyssal energy and charging at Humboldt. Sighing, the cutter caught the DE's arm, and flipped her on her back before relieving her of the dagger. Immediately, Clarence Evans faded back to normal.

"Mmph, nasty piece of work," Humboldt muttered, before stowing the dagger and releasing Clarence Evans. "Well, South Dakota's going to want to look at that, so... next!"

"Alright, point taken, but why does anyone even pick things up on these convoy runs?" Metivier grumbled. "If they didn't, we wouldn't have these stupid inspections!"

"True," McNulty said, pulling an Abyssal skull out of her hold and tossing it between her hands. "But y'know how it is. How else are we supposed to get souvenirs without desperate Army and Marine pukes to rip off?"

Metivier showed what she thought of _that_ by facepalming.

"Next!" Humboldt called out.


	532. Rule 1965

**Rule 1965. There's a limit on dumpster diving at junk yards for parts, Science Ship Girls Division!**

Old Man Jiro - he had a last name, but nobody alive remembered it, and he never bothered to share - sighed as he leaned on the counter of the little gatehouse in front of his junkyard. Business had been slow the past month, and his inventory was piling up. That also meant money was flowing out as people showed up with scrap metal and junked cars to sell. He just needed a buyer, any buyer!

Still, he was wasn't too worried. The Yuubari twins liked his junkyard, probably for the bulk discount and availability of electronic components from a commercial recycling section he'd set up about five years prior. Genius, that, and it kept the local teenagers occupied. Anyway, it had been two months since the twins had dropped by; sooner rather than later they'd be back, ready to buy.

"Urrrr..."

Glancing up, Jiro narrowed his eyes at the female form shuffling up the road. Short brown hair in a side ponytail, the distinctive kyudo uniform - yup, that was a carrier, all right. Probably Kaga, if his memory wasn't playing tricks again.

"Hello?" he called out. No answer. The carrier just kept shuffling forward, and after a few minutes the Old Man Jiro shrugged and leaned back, staring up at the clouds.

Fifteen minutes later, he was pulled away from a cloud resembling 80s-era David Hasselhoff by the tortured screeching of metal being ripped apart. Nearly falling backwards, he slammed forward and onto his feet, looking out the shack and into his junkyard, where Kaga had pulled a perfectly good roof off a car and was now munching on it.

"Hey!" he snapped. "You put that down, young lady!"

Pausing, Kaga glanced at him, and Old Man Jiro flinched back. Her eyes were wild, desperate. Animal. No way was he getting involved with _that_.

"My junkyard for the JSDF's number..." he groused, leaning back and resigning himself to waiting until someone noticed the carrier was gone.

~o~

"Alright, you've got the list?" Yuubari confirmed as she drove her heavily modified Jeep down a well-kept dirt road.

"Got it right here!" her twin replied, brandishing a thick roll of paper - and then dropping it onto the floor, prompting a mad scramble. "Important stuff at the top! Shit, why is this thing so long?!"

"Let's hope we can buy all that," Yuubari said, her voice descending into semi-coherent grumbling. "Stupid admiral... stupid budget... we've got the Yukikaze fund for _exactly_ this sort of shit... stupid penny-pinching bureaucrats..."

"I'm just glad we get a research stipend at all," Yuubari answered as she came back up, holding the list. "Anyway, you hear about what's going on with Kaga?"

Yuubari grimaced; the last convoy had seen two food ships torpedoed by a lucky Abyssal submarine, which had resulted in rather serious cutbacks to the food ration for "non-essential personnel". And since they didn't fight very often, she and her twin fell under "non-essential". Annoying, that. Kaga, meanwhile, had reduced her own intake in a show of solidarity. "Let me guess, she's starting to flag?"

"Yup. Looks like a shambling zombie, she does," was the answer. "Poor Akagi was trying to get her to eat more, but that wasn't going so well at breakfast."

Nodding, Yuubari focused on the road again. They were coming up on their favorite junkyard, ready to clean out its supply of parts. Not to mention some steel for structural components. Admiral Goto hadn't liked them "borrowing" fleet steel supplies any more than he'd liked them dipping into the discretionary funds. Fascist!

Shaking her head, Yuubari turned a corner and the junkyard came into view. As did Kaga stuffing a car axle down her gullet.

"What the fuck," both Yuubaris said simultaneously as they coasted to a stop in front of Old Man Jiros gatehouse.

"Stop her, please!" the old man pleaded the instant he saw them. "You have a device or something that will stop her, right? I'll be eaten out of business!"

"No problem!" Yuubari chirped, tossing the list into the back and grabbing something under her shirt.

"Now then," her twin replied, leaning over the wheel as the one out of the Jeep began twirling her sock filled with ball bearings. "How do you feel about a discount?"

"Er..." Old Man Jiro said, watching as Yuubari just strode up to Kaga and smacked her over the head. With a sock. Filled with ball bearings. "Right... ten percent, then, for saving my business?"

"We saved your business." The grin that spread across Yuubari's face would've sent a shark fleeing towards an Orca pod. "I think ten percent is a bit _low_ , don't you think?"

~o~

"Success!" Yuubari crowed as they drove away several hours later, Kaga and a pile of goodies stacked in the back of the Jeep.

Her twin wasn't looking nearly so triumphant. In fact, she was staring in worry back at the junkyard. "Y'think Old Man Jiro will be alright?" she asked softly. "You kinda gouged him..."

"I know for a fact that he gets those electronics for free," Yuubari replied. "He'll be fine. Even with the discount he made a mint off those electronics."

"Oh. Then why don't you try to haggle him down?"

Yuubari shrugged. "A man's entitled to his profit, and we still pay below-market prices. Haggling's kinda pointless."

Both light cruisers fell silent at that. And they had just reached asphalt when they heard a crunching sound behind them.

"Oh for..." Yuubari groaned. "You covered the important stuff under the scrap, right?"

"Yup," the driving Yuubari replied, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a syringe. "Sedative."

"Thanks." Taking the syringe, she climbed into the back to knock out the gluttonous fleet carrier. "Can't believe it was _Kaga_ this time..."


	533. Rule 1968

**Rule 1968. There is no Internationally Recognized Holiday known as "Nude Day". It is wrong to tell newly summoned Shipgirls otherwise.**

Admiral Briggs grinned as the glow from the summoning circle faded, revealing two destroyer escorts, a destroyer, and two escort carriers much taller than the Casablancas that made up the majority of his carrier force.

"USS Crosley, reporting!"

"Hey, everybody! This is USS Cread! Glad to be here!"

"Uh, I-I'm USS Meredith. Pleased to meet you."

"Sir, USS Commencement Bay, reporting!"

"Sir, USS Block Island, reporting!"

"At ease, girls," Briggs stated, all five relaxing. "Saipan will give you a brief orientation and show you your quarters-" Here he indicated the light carrier beside him. "And then training will begin tomorrow. Good luck!"

As his secretary ship led the new summons away, Admiral Briggs began going through his mental rolodex of trainers. Unfortunately, at least for the escort carriers it was a very short list. Most of those who could train them were deployed or otherwise unavailable; Bogue and Ranger, for instance, had both filed for leave for "personal reasons". As he mentally eliminated more and more girls, Briggs came to the unfortunate realization that there was only one shipgirl he could send them to.

"Oh, I'm going to regret this..." he groaned.

~o~

"This is the place, right?" Commencement Bay asked, glancing up at the door she and her sister were standing in front of.

Next to her, Block Island glanced at the directions Saipan had written out. "Yeah, this is the place. Should be, at least."

With that, Commencement Bay reached up and rapped on the door three times. After a few seconds and several muffled footsteps, the door opened to reveal Wasp. Who was, by the way, not wearing a stitch of clothing.

"What are you-" Wasp began, before facepalming. "Aw, fiddlesticks, I forgot you guys were coming. Give me one-"

"Why are you naked?!" Block Island snapped, her cheeks bright red. Next to her, Commencement Bay had was busy hyperventilating into a paper bag, also blushing furiously.

"Like I said, I forgot you guys were coming," Wasp said, sighing. "Look, just give me a minute to throw something on, okay? Then I can explain things." And with that, she closed the door.

For a second, Block Island just stared at the door, then threw up her hands. "Great! Just great. Our teacher is some kind of exhibitionist pervert."

"W-Why don't we let her explain before jumping to conclusions, okay?" Commencement Bay countered, her voice muffled by the paper bag. "Maybe she has a good explanation for this."

"It'd better be a damn good explanation..." Block Island muttered. Silence fell for a few seconds, then the escort carrier turned to her sister. "By the way, what was with that reaction?"

"Well..." Commencement Bay trailed off. "Y'know how I like women instead of men?"

"No."

"Well, I do."

Block Island mulled that over. "Okay then."

And that was that, until Wasp opened the door again, this time wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"C'mon in," she said, the two escort carriers taking in the room as they stepped in. Bed, couch, computer stand, and several cabinets, one of which the carrier was rummaging around in. Pretty normal. "Want anything to eat? I've got snacks, and every new summon I've talked to has been hungry for _days_ afterward-"

"We're good," the escort carriers answered in unison.

Nodding, Wasp pulled out a bag of potato chips and sat down, munching on the bag itself. "So. I'm guessing you have questions?"

"Yes," Block Island stated. "Started with you answering the door naked."

"Well, I'm a nudist. I usually stay nude in my room," Wasp answered matter-of-factly. "And out of it, when I can get away with it, but that's not often. If I had remembered you guys were coming I'd've put something on before answering. Sorry about that."

"And, um, how did this start?" Commencement Bay asked.

Wasp grimaced, and then launched into the story. Of her no-AC punishment, how she'd decided to get back at Admiral Briggs, and finally how she found she liked nudity on its own merits. Silence followed, broken only by the crunch of her potato chips.

"And..." Block Island said, breaking the silence. "It's not sexual? At all?"

"Nope," Wasp replied. "That would be kinda missing the point."

The escort carrier nodded, clearly thinking things over. So deep in thought were she and Commencement Bay that they didn't notice the evil smirk that flashed over Wasp's face. If they had, what followed might have been avoided.

"By the way, Nude Day is coming up next week," Wasp ever-so-casually mentioned. "You guys want to participate?"

Both escort carriers' gazes shot up at that, Commencement Bay thoughtful and Block Island skeptical. "Really?" she said skeptically. "That's an actual holiday?"

The carrier nodded. "Yup. Congress added it in the 1960s," Wasp lied. "Now, it's not an internationally recognized holiday, and I'm not going to force you to do anything for it, but I'd like it if you could participate."

"I'll do it."

Block Island's head whirled around to stare at Commencement Bay, who was staring straight at Wasp, gaze blazing with determination.

"I want to know," she said. "This..." She gestured at her body. "Is all really new, and I want to experience as much of it as I can."

"Atta girl," Wasp said, grinning. "So, Block Island? What about you?"

Glancing between her sister and mentor, and blushing furiously, the escort carrier finally threw up her hands. "Alright, fine. But I want a cover-up handy!"

"Sure, sure," Wasp replied. "Anyway..." Reaching into her hold, she pulled out two thick packets. "Read over these today, and tomorrow we can start practicing your actual carrier skills."

And that was the end of the meeting. Commencement Bay and Block Island left shortly thereafter, and Wasp immediately dove onto her computer to compose an email to some like-minded individuals on base. She needed to sell this, as much to keep her new charges comfortable as to keep up the illusion.

~o~

 _July 14th  
_  
Admiral Briggs sighed contentedly as he looked out over his base. His fears regarding Wasp had so far proven unfounded. She'd been an excellent mentor to his new escort carriers, and hadn't tried to convert them to her nudist lifestyle, as far as he could tell. In fact, there they... were...

The handle of his mug spontaneously turned to powder, the rest shattering on his desk and spraying coffee everywhere as he saw that all three carriers were completely naked aside from shoes and socks. Wasp had her usual devil-may-care attitude in place, while the two escort carriers looked painfully embarrassed, Block Island more so than Commencement Bay.

And then Tuscaloosa walked up to them, dressed the same way.

 _"WAAAAAAAAAAASP!"_ he roared.


	534. Rule 1971

**Rule 1971. Just because sushi tends to equate "consumable raw fish dish" doesn't mean that you can just chow down on fish caught in the wild during escort without consulting whether the species is safe to eat first just because you wanted a "snack"!**

[Is that a fishing pole?]

"Yeah, it is," Shangri-La replied to Wonda. "I'm hungry."

Leaning over the spot where the string trailed down into the water, the Abyssal emissary tried to figure out how deep the line was going. She gave up after five hundred feet. [Why are you fishing so deep?]

"I wanna see what anglerfish tastes like."

Wonda stared up at Shangri-La, who looked as innocent as can be. Nope. She wasn't dealing with this. Picking up steam, she accelerated away and towards the outer edge of the formation. Ostensibly there to protect the diplomatic ship currently heading towards Hawaii, the task force was an odd mix of expendables and some of America's best. The destroyers were all Bensons, and Shangri-La was one of the more inexperienced fleet carriers, but Monterey was an immensely skilled light carrier, to say nothing about the trio of Newport News, Salem, and Des Moines and the Sumner-class radar pickets. Strange, very strange.

At least Monterey and the cruisers were good conversation, even if she didn't feel like talking to them at the moment. Sadly, that left her with little to do other than watch Shangri-La fish. Luckily, the carrier soon got a bite.

"Yes!" she crowed, quickly spinning the reel. "Come on, come on..."

Fascinated despite herself, Wonda watched for the five minutes it took for Shangri-La to reel in her fish. And what a fish it was. As long as the carrier was tall, it was a very dark brown, almost black, and of conventional fish structure. Something about the fish tickled the Abyssal's brain, but what was it?

"Aww... no anglerfish," the carrier sighed. "Oh well!" First smacking the fish in the head to kill it, she pried a chunk of flesh off and moved to eat it-

[Uh, you sure you should be eating that raw?] Wonda cut in.

"Eh, I eat sushi all the time with no problem," Shangri-La replied, tossing the chunk of fish in her mouth and chewing. After a few seconds, her face lit up. "Wow, this thing's good! Hey, anyone else want some fish?"

As Wonda watched Shangri-La sprint off to share her fish, the name of the creature finally entered her mind. And oh what a creature it was. A grin spread across her face in anticipation of what was to come.

[Oh, this is gonna be good...]

~o~

Two hours later, Wonda was proven right. Shangri-La, as well as Des Moines and destroyer Hilary P. Jones were looking distinctly green and bowlegged. Grinning, the Abyssal steamed up to them.

[Bowel trouble?] she said.

"If you mean I really gotta poop, then yeah!" Hilary P. Jones wailed.

"You!" Shangri-La spat, pointing an accusatory finger at Wonda. "What did you do?!"

[Moi? I didn't do anything,] Wonda said innocently. [Well, besides only just remember that the fish you ate was an Escolar, which has a similar effect to those sugar-free gummy bears.]

All three shipgirls paled dramatically, and glanced up at the diplomatic ship, clearly debating whether they should ask permission to go aboard. Then a loud, wet gurgling from their guts sounded out, and any reservations fell away.

[Good luck!] a grinning Wonda called out after them.


	535. Rule 1982

**Rule 1982. Placing paper talismans on the foreheads of Abyssals will not turn them into ship girls. Stop trying, we are running out of paper.**

Ryuujo stared at the door to the Yuubaris' workshop and sighed. Why was she doing this again? Oh, right, because they'd offered her a _goddamn beam rifle._ Her expression immediately melted from nervous anxiety to blushing imagination at the thought. Oh, they'd be making sweet combat together...

Shaking her head, the light carrier dispelled the fantasy. Now was not the time to be distracted! Raising her hand, she gave the door a hearty knock, getting a "Come in!" from inside. Opening the door, she was greeted by a sunnily grinning Yuubari. "Hey, you're on time! A lot of people aren't!"

"Can't imagine why," Ryuujo muttered. "So. What d'you want me to test?"

"These."

The light carrier flinched as the _other_ Yuubari slammed a stack of paper right in front of her. A stack that went up to her chest. She looked surly, which was actually a little disconcerting. Ryuujo hadn't interacted all that much with the mad scientist light cruiser before she cloned herself, but she remembered her being generally cheery. The current attitude of the surly twin was... odd. The light carrier eyed the other Yuubari, still cheerful but also glaring cutely at her twin. Those two would be hounded by psychologists after the war, she just knew it.

"And these are...?" Yuubari asked, picking one sheet up and examining the writing on it.

"Charms of some kind. I dunno, it was other me's idea, not mine." That said, Yuubari threw a glare at her twin. "And she's _also_ the one who saddled me with writing all of these out!"

Still examining one of the charms, Ryuujo winced. One of these characters had eighty-four strokes; honestly, it was a true miracle of science that Yuubari didn't have her wrist in a sling from writer's cramp.

"You lost the Mario Kart game, just like we agreed," Yuubari sniffed.

"Blue shells are _bullshit_ , and I refuse to believe you got three in one race!"

"So, what do they do?" Ryuujo cut in before the argument could heat up.

Yuubari nodded, ignoring an annoyed huff from her twin as she stomped off to go tinker. "If they work properly, they'll turn an Abyssal into a shipgirl if you slap it on her forehead." At the confused look Ryuujo sent her way, the mad science shipgirl switched to lecture mode. "Okay, you know how some Abyssals look like shipgirls? Or seem to represent shipgirls? Well, one of our working theories is that that red-headed woman is somehow tapping into the same spiritual essence we came from and is...corrupting it somehow. If that's true, then purging that corruption should bring the shipgirl back."

"Riiiight..." Ryuujo drawled skeptically.

"Look, I'm still not sure this will work," the cheery Yuubari cut in. "Just test it out, okay? That's all I ask."

"Fine," Ryuujo sighed, taking a sheet and standing. She paused, then took another sheet, and then left.

~o~

Two weeks later, she got her chance to use the tags.

Fighting the Abyssals as a carrier was always somewhat chancy. This wasn't like when they were steel hulls; with the Abyssals having a full array of opposing carriers, they could afford to also throw powerful surface forces at them, and sometimes those broke through, though thankfully they tended to be cruisers and destroyers instead of battleships. Ryuujo shuddered; that one time a Re-class had busted through the cordon was the closest she'd gotten to actually sinking. Again.

It also helped that this round, she was operating with Akagi and Kaga.

"Firing!" both fleet carriers barked, their casemated 8" guns staggering a Ne-class cruiser. Spotting her chance, Ryuujo surged forward.

"Let me try something!" she called out, pulling one of the tags out. The Abyssal cruiser didn't have time to recover before she reached it and slapped the tag on its forehead, accompanied by a burst of spiritual power.

Nothing happened.

The Abyssal, now recovered, immediately took the chance to aim and load her guns at Ryuujo. Sadly, the light carrier was quicker on the draw, pulling out her fancy new beam rifle.

"Sa~yo~na~ra~!" Ryuujo sang, before blowing the Abyssal's head off.

~o~

"Hey, Jintsuu."

"Hm?" The light cruiser turned around, looking puzzled. "Yes, Ryuujo?"

"Mind if I stick this on you?" the light carrier asked, holding up her other tag. "I want to see if something works."

"... Okay."

With the affirmative, Ryuujo carefully placed the tag on Jintsuu's forehead, the light cruiser having closed her eyes. And then, a curious transformation happened. Her skin paled, her hair darkened, a black, horned half-mask slid over her eyes, and her clothes shifted, not least of which turning black. Just as the grinning torpedo mount manifested, Ryuujo ripped off the tag, the changes evaporating, leaving Jintsuu blinking in consternation.

"I seem to have lost several seconds..." she remarked.

"Don't worry about it," Ryuujo said dismissively as she eyed the tag, much as she would a venomous snake. "Worry about Yuubari once I get her hands on her."


	536. Rule 1984

**Rule 1984. We don't care who they belong to, remove the cameras from the heads, the ship boy quarters, the docks, and the officer quarters.  
**  
"I swear to God, it wasn't me!" Aoba desperately wailed, trying desperately to loosen her bonds.

The cause of her desperation was several shipgirls looming over her. Akashi. Kongo. Ashigara. Langley. Mutsu. All had apparently found video cameras in... compromising locations, ones that were _not_ tied into the admiralty network. Naturally, the intrepid and recently released from prison reporter had been the first suspect.

"You should come clean, Aoba," Kongo intoned. "After all, we're doing you a favor. What do you think would happen if Admiral Goto learned of this?"

Aoba, of course, did know what would happen if the terms of her agreement were violated. It wasn't pretty. She _also_ knew that any such investigation into such violations would be fair and extensive, something she doubted this kangaroo court would do. In that case, the choice was easy.

"Go ahead, call him in," Aoba smugly replied. "I trust an official investigation far more than you bitches, and the minute I tell the Admiral what you guys are doing... well. I hope one of your sisters will be willing to let you crash on their couch, Kongo."

Victory! All five shipgirls were looking uncomfortable. In fact, there was Akashi putting a hand on Kongo's shoulder. "Kongo," the repair ship reluctantly stated. "She's got a point. Maybe we have jumped the gun."

"B-B-But the cameras! Bedroom! Teitoku and I!" Kongo stammered, bypassing red and developing entirely new colors to show her embarrassment. Finally, she slumped to the ground, covered her eyes, and wailed, _"SOMEONE SAW OUR MARSHMALLOW AND CHOCOLATE NIGHT!"  
_  
"There, there," Mutsu cooed, stroking poor Kongo's head while everyone else stood (or sat) around looking awkward.

"Akashi..." Langley said, her face green. "I'd like the part of my brain responsible for that image _lobotomized_. And coming from me..."

"Don't we all..." Ashigara muttered. "Anyway, Aoba, if not you, then who?"

"I suspect whoever it is who was making the figurines with detachable clothes," the heavy shrugged, as much as she could in her restraints. "They're... really, really detailed. Disturbingly detailed. They had to get that information somewhere." A terrible thought occurred to Aoba. "Where did you find those cameras, anyway?"

"Officer's quarters," Ashigara answered, grimacing.

"Docks," Akashi spat.

"Shipgirl quarters." Langley's face twisted into something ugly. "And shipboy, too."

"The heads." All eyes whirled to Mutsu, who grimaced. "Please don't ask how I found that out. It's not pretty."

"Right..." Aoba muttered, trying desperately _not_ to think of the most likely reason for someone to put cameras in the heads. "Anyway... my advice? Punt this upstairs so that I can maybe divine something from the camera footage." She thought, and shuddered. "Not the ones from the heads, though."

"We'll do that," Ashigara said, reaching over and snapping Aoba's ropes.


	537. Rule 1993

**Rule 1993. To all personnel: You may not use a carrier ship girl's flight deck for any purpose other than the intended one.**

"Oh for crying out loud... hey, has anyone seen my old straight flight deck?"

Oriskany and Hancock glanced over to where Midway was rummaging through a closet. _"That's_ what you were looking for?" the former stated, incredulity tinging her voice. "Why?"

"Because my flight deck got busted up in that last battle," was the muffled answer. "Stupid clouds... stupid dive bombers... stupid fairy pilots... anyway, it'll take a bit to re-certify my pilots for Tigercats, Corsairs, and Skyraiders, but less than it'll take to fix up my flight deck."

"Wait," Hancock cut in. "Your flight deck, is it curved on the edges, with angled catapults and tapers at the bow and stern?"

"Er, yes?" Midway halted her rummaging, her head popping up. "Why?"

"Because I saw Fresno run by carrying it over her head and cackling like a madwoman five minutes ago," the carrier dryly answered. "Also, she was wearing a wetsuit and saying something about going to the beach."

Midway immediately let out a vile epithet and sprinted out the door. "That stupid cruiser is _not_ using my goddamn flight deck as a surfboard!" trailed back towards the two carriers as her footsteps thundered off into the distance.

As the sounds trailed off, Hancock and Oriskany exchanged glances. "That poor, stupid idiot," the former sighed after several seconds.

"Ayup," Oriskany agreed.

~o~

"Akagi..." Kaga said uncertainly.

"Nope!" her half-sister sniffed as she half-led, half-dragged the fleet carrier along. "You are going to go to the barbecue, you are going to eat as much meat as you can, and you are going to enjoy it!"

"That was one time!" Kaga weakly protested. "I'm not going to do it again!"

"Exactly. Because I won't let you."

At that, Kaga shut up. She knew when to pick her battles. Also, the smell of grilling meat and fish was wafting into her nostrils. Kind of hard to put up any more protest at that.

Soon enough, they reached the barbecue, dozens of shipgirls and sailors scattered across the lawn on chairs and blankets, Yamato manning a large grill with Enterprise watching Yoshino, and several sailors manning another-

Kaga's eyes widened as she took in the other grill. "That's my _flight deck_ ," she said, incredulous.

"What? No it's not," Akagi said, looking over. "Where would they even oh my God it is your flight deck."

Indeed, there, a fire crackling merrily below and meat sizzling above, was her old triple-layer flight deck (oh God the memories and Hosho's baby pictures), now being used as a grill. And a glance towards the other grill confirmed that the deck _staying_ had been entirely deliberate on Enterprise's part.

Akagi, meanwhile, was brought out of her stunned amazement by the sound a cap unscrewing, and she turned around to see Kaga upending her hip flask. "Kaga, no," she pleaded.

"Kaga, yes," the carrier slurred, swaying on her feet.

It was at this point that Enterprise made the spectacularly unwise to walk over to them. "So!" she said cheerfully. "Nice derp deck- I mean, flight deck!"

Kaga merely blinked slowly, before replying, "You. You have boobs. And a butt. And you didn't. But then you did."

Enterprise blinked, then slowly handed Yoshino over to Akagi. "Er, yes?"

"I got butts. I mean, butt. And boobs," Kaga continued, swaying and flushed and totally drunk. "'Cept I lost... stuff. Better than being turned into cars, but... still sucks. So. I lose boob and butt. You get more. Where's the justice in that?"

"Uh, none at all?" E ventured.

Kaga nodded. "Good talkin' with ya, ghostie." And with that, she staggered off towards the other grill team.

"Does alcohol usually do this?" Enterprise asked.

Akagi nodded, not looking up from where she was rubbing Yoshino's cute nose. "Yes. That was quite the surprise."

The American carrier nodded. "Sucks to be those guys, then."

"Yup."


	538. Rule 1996

**Rule 1996. Please don't interrupt Honolulu and Jintsuu's dates from now on. It will not end well.**

Sendai lowered her phone, glancing over her sunglasses at where her sister Jintsuu was laughing at something Honolulu had said. The light cruiser had dyed her hair bright blue and trimmed it into a spiky pixie cut for this operation, and was dressed decidedly differently than usual. Cheap bracelets and bangles, denim shorts, a cut-up crop top t-shirt over a sports bra, and the most impractical heels she could find replaced her usual orange dress.

The result was that she looked like a particularly vapid teenage American girl doing... things on her phone, and _not_ like the light cruiser Sendai. That allowed her to observe the date her sister was on.

On the other side of the street was Nashville, her dusky skin blending well with the hijab she was wearing as she chatted with her own boyfriend at another outdoor cafe. The two had run into each other the second time they had followed each other on their sisters' dates, and had ended up being the ones to disrupt said date, though thankfully neither Jintsuu nor Honolulu figured out it was them. After that, they had come to an understanding, especially after the third date went disastrously wrong.

Why was this subterfuge necessary, you ask? It certainly wasn't because the two cruisers treated each other badly, oh no; in fact, they were almost sickeningly sweet to each other. Instead, Jintsuu and Honolulu had a remarkable ability to find trouble on their dates. Besides their sisters' knockdown brawl interrupting their second date, their first had been interrupted by a visiting pack of Oakland Raiders fans getting into a brawl with diehard Chargers fans that promptly spilled into a small riot and led to Honolulu taking a Molotov cocktail to the body; their fourth had been ended by a car landing on them, on the rooftop restaurant they were eating at, while on fire; and the third... well. No one liked to talk about the third. Still, the fact that Abyssals were now to a monster deathly afraid of inflatable squeaky mallets was a useful trick.

As such, Nashville and Sendai had agreed that they would head off any sort of threat to interrupt their sisters' dates. It was fun, it tested her stealth skills, and some of the things she saw were bizarre enough to get them free drinks at Yokosuka and San Diego bars.

And on that note, Sendai noticed Nashville kiss her boyfriend on the forehead and then head into the cafe. Standing, and making sure to keep her phone in front of her face (and also detailing a couple fairies for lookout duty so she didn't walk into anything), she made her way to the parking lot behind said cafe.

Right in time for Nashville to get thrown through the back wall and into the building behind by-

"What."

Some... Polynesian-looking dude wearing a fancy headdress and being held up by four other, bigger Polynesian-looking dudes? What?

Said man glanced at Sendai and almost immediately dismissed her. "Stand back, fair lady. I, Prince Shyamalamadingdong, must finish with the harridan who would keep me from my bride."

Sendai filed the man away under 'insane', and turned to Nashville, who was ripping off the headscarf she'd been wearing. "You got this?"

"Yeah, I got this," Nashville growled as she peeled herself off the wall.

"Fool!" the Prince declared, jabbing a finger at her. "You are no match for me! Surrender now, and I might be convinced to- YIPE!"

That startled yelp was due to Nashville picking up a large chunk of brickwork and tossing it at the Prince. Immediately, his four burly carriers unceremoniously dropped his ass on the pavement and reared back a fist each. The brick wall slowly descended, closer, closer...

"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!"

And then all four lashed out with their fists, punching the wall into fine dust. Sadly, that did absolutely nothing for Nashville landing square on the front row's faces. The other two went down shortly thereafter.

As the American cruiser made sure she hadn't over done things, Sendai walked up to the Prince, who was still sitting on his ass, staring wide-eyed at the quick work Nashville had made of his retainers. "How..." he breathed.

"Which one?" Sendai asked.

The Prince glanced to the light cruiser looming over him and yelped, trying to scramble back. A foot on his grass skirt put an end to that. "W-What?"

"Which one of those lovebirds..." And her her thumb was jammed towards the street. "Is your 'bride'?"

The Prince simply blinked dumbly at her, and Sendai felt the last of her patience slip away.

"Which one are you here to cart off like a sack of choice loot?" she growled, looming over him.

"T-The kind one, with hair like the earth!" the Prince stammered fearfully.

Jintsuu, then. Oh, she was going to _enjoy_ this. "Alright-"

"Stop!" the Prince declared, his arrogance back full-force. "I am Prince of Lahkshamina, and I carry the full weight of my country's diplomatic clout! If you touch me, your countrymen will starve in the streets!"

Sendai glanced up to Nashville. "You ever heard of this 'Lahkshamina' place?"

"Nope!" Nashville cheerfully replied, clearly seeing where this was going.

"Well, then, I'd say you're impersonating a diplomat," Sendai said, fighting down a grin at the cold sweat that beaded on the Prince's forehead. "Naughty naughty. Of course, I'm feeling generous, so I won't hand you off to the MPs." Grabbing him under the armpits, the light cruiser lifted him up. "Instead, I'm gonna do this."

Letting him go, Sendai gave the Prince an almighty punt to the oompa-loompas, sending him careening into the sky, screaming at the top of his longs. Nashville whistled as she tracked his flight. "You sure that won't kill him?"

"Japan gets a dozen of these island prince yahoos every year," Sendai replied. "Don't ask me why, but they're basically invulnerable to physical abuse. He'll be fine, as long as someone fishes him out of the bay in time."


	539. Sequel Notice

Hey, guys! Don't worry, Things No Longer Allowed will still be continuing. However, considering the original has already gone on for 538 chapters and we're about to pass the 2000-rule mark, I figured it'd be best to start a new story. I have no idea if there's some sort of chapter limit on FFN, and I'd rather not find out.

On a related note, if anyone knows how to work TvTropes, I wouldn't mind a page for this fic on there. Just saying.


End file.
